The Girl's own

Claudia Nelson, Lynne Vallone

In The Girl's Own Claudia Nelson and Lynne Vallone bring together eleven essays that explore British and American Victorian representations of the adolescent girl. The variety of contemporary sources on which the essays draw includes conduct books, housekeeping manuals, periodicals, biographies, photographs, paintings, and educational treatises. The institutions, practices, and literatures discussed in this volume reveal the ways in which the Girl expressed her independence, as well as the ways in which she was presented and controlled. As many of the contributors note, nineteenth-century visions of girlhood in both Britain and the United States were extremely ambiguous. The adolescent girl was a figure both fascinating and troubling to Victorian commentators, who often debated her place in society. In the controversy over female sexuality and behavior she played an especially...

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