Ruth A. Symes

Trev Broughton (Editor), Ruth A. Symes (Editor)

Palgrave Macmillan (February 15, 1998)

ISBN: 075091503X

The governess has haunted the British imagination since the eighteenth century, when in the indomitable person of the preceptress, she helped to define what it meant to be a rational woman.

In the nineteenth century she evolved into a far more enigmatic figure, embodying both the hopes and fears of the moneyed classes and marking faultlines in the ideal of domestic femininity¹.

 

Who was the Victorian governess and why did her fate inspire generations of novelists and reformers²?

 

This lively and engaging anthology³ brings together a huge range of material, from the classics-Emma, Jane Erye, Vanity Fair –to the less familiar popular fiction, journalism, memoirs, advice manuals, letters and school books–to give an insight into her life.

 

Following a general introduction, individual chapters examine becoming a governess, the methods and skills of her working life, the problems it involved and the solutions offered by reformers, the experience of living away from home, and fantasies of and about the governess.

Technorati Tags: book, books, editor, governess, historians, history, ruth symes, social history, trev broughton, victorian, women

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~~Dictionary~~
1 femininity
Definitions

1. the quality or nature of the female sex
2. effeminacy
3. women, womankind

Pronounciation: ˌfe-mə-ˈni-nə-tē
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
2 reformers
Definitions

1. one that works for or urges reform
2. a leader of the Protestant Reformation
3. an apparatus for cracking oils or gases to form specialized products

Pronounciation: ri-ˈfȯr-mər
Function: noun
Date: 1526
3 anthology
Definitions

1. a collection of selected literary pieces or passages or works of art or music
2. assortment <an anthology of threadbare clichés of…bistro cuisine — Jay Jacobs>

Pronounciation: an-ˈthä-lə-jē
Function: noun
Date: 1621
Etymology: New Latin anthologia collection of epigrams, from Middle Greek, from Greek, flower gathering, from anthos flower + logia collecting, from legein to gather; akin to Sanskrit andha herb — more at legend