List of illustrations Abbreviations List of contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: Why Anglican, why Women, why Novelists? – Judith Maltby, Corpus Christi University, University of Oxford, UK, and Alison Shell, University College London, UK 1. Charlotte Brontë (1816-55): An Anglican Imagination – Sara L. Pearson, Trinity Western University, Canada 2. Charlotte Maria Tucker, ‘A.L.O.E.’ (1821-93): Anglican Evangelicalism and National Identity – Nancy Jiwon Cho, Seoul National University, South Korea 3. Margaret Oliphant (1828-97): Opening Doors of Interpretation – Alison Milbank, University of Nottingham, UK 4. Charlotte M. Yonge (1823-1901): Writing for the Church – Charlotte Mitchell, University College London, UK 5. Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941): Mysticism in Fiction – Ann Loades, St Andrews University, UK 6. Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957): God and the Detective – Jessica Martin, Ely Cathedral, UK 7. Rose Macaulay (1881-1958): Anglican Apologist? – Judith Maltby, Corpus Christi University, University of Oxford, UK 8. Barbara Pym (1913-80): Anglican Anthropologies – Jane Williams, St Mellitus College, St Mellitus College 9. Elizabeth Goudge (1900-84): Clergymen and Masculinity – Susan D. Amussen, University of California, USA 10. Noel Streatfeild (1895-1986): Vicarage and other Families – Clemence Schultze, Durham University, UK 11. Iris Murdoch (1919-99): Anglican Atheist – Peter S. Hawkins, Yale Divinity School, USA 12. Monica Furlong (1930-2003): ‘With Love to the Church’ – Peter Sherlock, University of Divinity, Australia 13. P.D. James (1920-2014): ‘Lighten our Darkness’ – Alison Shell, University College London, UK Afterword - Francis Spufford, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
The Anglican Church has had a massive impact on a number of woman novelists. This illuminating study explores the range of ways and extent to which Anglicanism has inspired literary creations in the past centuries.
Judith Maltby is Chaplain and Fellow of Corpus Christi College and Reader in Church History in the University of Oxford, UK. As well as publishing widely on the history of Anglicanism, she is an occasional commentator on religion on BBC Radio 4 and The Guardian (2004-2011). Alison Shell is a Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at University College London, UK. She has published widely on the relationship of Christianity and literature in Britain between the Reformation and the 21st century.
[Anglican Women Novelists] makes a genuine contribution to literary
history, women's history, and the history of the Anglican
church.
*Review 19*
The collection offers a wonderful guide to a vein of female novel
writing that has offered a sustained critical but sympathetic
engagement with the Church of England for more than two hundred
years.
*Anglican and Episcopal History*
Both entertaining and enriching ... Shell's exploration of the
theology of P. D. James is especially interesting ... [An]
excellent essay.
*Times Literary Supplement*
For anyone interested in women writers and religion – particularly
its Anglican form – this is a fascinating read which deserves not
one, but multiple readings ... Anglican Women Novelists lives up to
the blurb on the back cover and I recommend it to readers of
Sofia.
*Sofia Magazine*
This collection of essays will not only be enjoyed by many, but
will, I hope, also encourage those now writing and those who might
one day seek to do so.
*Church Times*
This fascinating compendium edited by Judith Maltby and Alison
Shell is worth not one but multiple readings. From Brontë and
Oliphant to Dorothy Sayers and P.D. James, the list of Anglican
woman novelists included here is an impressive one, with an equally
impressive group of contributors examining their work.
*The Most Revd Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the
Episcopal Church, USA.*
This collection of essays is a joy to read. It made me want to
revisit old friends, and strike up an acquaintance with new ones.
More importantly, it made me aware for the first time of a
tradition of writers—Anglican Women Novelists—in all their glory
and eccentricity. Technically eccentric—off-centre—because the
centres of church power were not open to them; but often personally
eccentric as well, because each one is gloriously herself, bringing
her own character, intelligence, and the raw material of life to
the task of fiction. This book will light up the way for the next
generation of readers and writers, as we try to work out what it
means to be fully yourself, and to be Anglican—eccentric and
slightly out of kilter with the mainstream, but with an important
story to live and share.
*Catherine Fox, novelist, Lecturer in Creative Writing, Manchester
Metropolitan University, UK, and author of the ‘Lindchester
Chronicles’*
Reading this fascinating and significant collection of essays has
been like revisiting a journey that was made the first time in
darkness but this time with the advantage of a torch. The journey
is the journey made by women in the Church of England. It is so
heartening to see how these Anglican women writers demolish any
belief that there is one single ‘female perspective’. In almost
every way they could not be more different from one another and
yet, intriguingly, despite the differences, they share the
experience of having lived, as Francis Spufford puts it, in
‘intimate outsiderhood’. It is this that illuminates much that has
been hidden and ignored in the story of Anglicanism. This volume is
a gift to all of us who believe it is from the edges that the
greatest light often shines.
*The Rt Revd Christine Hardman, Bishop of Newcastle, UK*
This symposium is an intellectual treat: original in focus,
wide-ranging, and a sprightly read – not least because many of the
authors studied were extremely witty, and others have acquired
entertainment value beyond their original intentions. The editors
are donating a rich and useable past to present-day discussions in
Church and society.
*Diarmaid MacCulloch, Kt, DD, FBA, Professor of the History of the
Church, University of Oxford, UK.*
Anglicanism has a distinguished literary tradition. This compelling
set of essays, written by distinguished scholars, sets the record
straight. When we talk, think, and write about that literary
tradition, women writers deserve a place of prominence. Rarely is a
book more needed: if we think aright about our past, then we can
think aright about our present and future.
*The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D. Dean and President of Virginia
Theological Seminary and Professor of Theology and Ethics,
USA.*
Maltby and Shell’s superlative volume on Anglican women novelists
is a timely and thoughtful collection showcasing the imaginative
sophistication of a much-neglected group of writers. Largely
excised from traditional narratives of the history of the Church of
England, the women vibrantly illuminated here reveal an alternative
Anglican landscape usually portrayed by male, clerical voices.
Chapters on authors from Charlotte Brontë to Evelyn Underhill, Iris
Murdoch to P. D. James rigorously explore the relationship between
literature and Anglican spirituality in the past two centuries and
into the future. A compelling and original project.
*Emma Mason, Professor of English and Comparative Literature,
University of Warwick, UK and author of Christina Rossetti: Poetry,
Ecology, Faith.*
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