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Outsiders : five women writers who changed the world / Lyndall Gordon

Summary:

Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner and Virginia Woolf: they all wrote dazzling books that forever changed the way we see history. In "Outsiders", award-winning biographer Lyndall Gordon shows how these five novelists shared more than talent. In a time when a woman's reputation was her security, each of these women lost hers. They were unconstrained by convention, writing against the grain of their contemporaries, prophetically imagining a different future. We have long known the individual greatness of each of these writers, but in linking their creativity to their lives as outcasts, Gordon throws new light on the genius they share. All five lost their mothers in childbirth or at a young age. With no female role model present, they learned from books - and sometimes from an enlightened mentor. Crucially, each had to imagine what a woman could be in order to invent a voice of her own. The passion in their own lives infused their fiction. Writing with passionate intelligence of her own, Gordon reveals that these renegade writers inspired a new breed of women who wished to change a world locked in war, violence, exploitation and sexual abuse. Gordon's biographies have always shown the indelible connection between life and art: an intuitive, exciting and revealing approach that has been highly praised. In "Outsiders", she crafts nuanced portraits of Shelley, Brontë, Eliot, Schreiner and Woolf, naming each of these writers as prodigy, visionary, 'outlaw,' orator and explorer, and shows how they came, they saw and they left us changed. Today, following the tsunami of women's protest at wide-spread abuse, we do more than read them; we listen and live with their astonishing bravery and eloquence. -- inside cover.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9781421429441
  • ISBN: 1421429446
  • Physical Description: 338 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
  • Publisher: Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.

Content descriptions

General Note:
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Virago Press. First published in the United States in 2019 by John Hopkins University Press.
Copyright © Lyndall Gordon 2017, 2019.
Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
List of illustrations -- Foreword -- 1. Prodigy - Mary Shelley -- 2. Visionary - Emily Brontë -- 3. 'Outlaw' - George Eliot -- 4. Orator - Olive Schreiner -- 5. Explorer - Virginia Woolf -- The Outsiders Society -- Sources -- Further reading -- Acknowledgements -- Index.
Subject:
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851.
Eliot, George, 1819-1880.
Brontë, Emily, 1818-1848.
Schreiner, Olive, 1855-1920.
Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941.
Women authors > Biography.
Genre:
Biographies.

Available copies

  • 13 of 13 copies available at NC Cardinal.
  • 1 of 1 copy available at Onslow County Public Library. (Show)

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 13 total copies.
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Jacksonville Main Library 820.992 GOR (Text) 36015000618435 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Albemarle Main Library 800.922 Gor (Text) 31010000689507 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Annie Hubbard McEachern Public Library 820.9928 GORDON (Text) 34510000617702 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Beaufort Main 920 GORDO (Text) 34208203890487 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Haywood County Main Library 820.922 Gordon (Text) 33115007668160 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Henderson Main Branch 820.992 G (Text) 33258008571296 Adult Nonfiction Available -
High Point Library 809.8928 Gordon (Text) 30519009995930 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Marion Library 820 GOR (Text) 37810435750806 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Moss Memorial Library 920 GOR (Text) 80605001669158 Adult Nonfiction Available -
North Asheville Library 820.99287 GOR (Text) 0020512224955 Adult Nonfiction Available -