Early Role Models
Aphra Behn, 1640-1689
Aphra Behn was a celebrated novelist and poet and one of the most influential dramatists of the late seventeenth century. Two factors compelled her to write for a living: the death of her husband in 1665, and her indebtedness after serving as a spy for King Charles II. From 1670–when her first play, The Forc'd Marriage, was produced in London–Behn earned her living as a playwright and novelist until her death in 1689.
As the first woman in England to support herself by writing, Behn served as model and inspiration for generations of women authors who followed.
Fanny Burney, 1752-1840
Frances Burney was one of the earliest women writers to appear consistently in literary histories and, along with Jane Austen, to enter the canon of the English literary tradition. Her many successful novels and plays, and her fame as a diarist and correspondent, did much to inscribe women's writing into the history of British literature.
Burney’s first and most famous novel, Evelina, was published secretly with the assistance of her brother Charles, who, in disguise, took the manuscript to the bookseller. Evelina appeared in January 1778 and quickly sold out four editions within the year, but its true author was not revealed until six months after the novel’s publication.
Burney and her female contemporaries were able to side-step some of the obstacles that barred them from literary endeavors by publishing in genres lacking in prestige, such as the increasingly popular but low-status novel.
Jane Austen, 1775-1817
Until well into the nineteenth century, it was common for both male and female writers to publish under a pseudonym. Fiction, especially, was frequently published anonymously, as many authors did not want their true identities associated with such a low genre of literature.
For women, the cloak of anonymity was doubly important. Female assertion and self-revelation were viewed as unwomanly. Hence, writing under a man’s name could protect a woman from criticism for unladylike thoughts, and could increase her chances for an impartial review.
Jane Austen is one of the most widely read and revered novelists in the English language, and her novels have become both literary and popular classics.
Yet as a woman negotiating her culture’s censorship of female ambition, Austen was secretive about her writing and expressed a genuine aversion to acquiring a public character.
The title page of her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, states that it was "By A Lady," and her relations who knew of her authorship were enjoined to keep the secret. The title page of her next novel, Pride and Prejudice, attributed the work to "The Author of ‘Sense and Sensibility,’" and this practice continued with each successive novel.
Early Influences
Women who nurtured literary ambitions in the early nineteenth century lacked female mentors and models, and took their inspiration from the culture at large.
The immense fame and glamour of Lord Byron (1788-1824), whose poetry represented defiance and freedom, fed the daydreams of a generation of aspiring young writers–men and women alike.
Walter Scott (1771-1832) was one of the most read and celebrated authors of the early nineteenth century. His poems and novels played a role in the developing imaginations of the young Brontës, and he was George Eliot’s favorite novelist. Scott’s great popular success as a novelist provided an example of a successful writing career in a literary genre accessible to women.
George Sand, 1804-1876
Amantine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, the female French writer known as George Sand, produced more than eighty novels, and two dozen plays, as well as short stories and political tracts. Sand’s works frequently extolled the contributions of women to society and defended women's right to happiness. Her attacks on the status quo of nineteenth-century French society–from marriage to the archaic hierarchy of the class system–caused great scandal and provoked scathing criticism of her work.
But Sand’s sexual freedom (she often sported male student garb) and public persona inspired and emboldened many women writers, providing them with a rare model of female success in a profession dominated by men.