Janet Ross's intergenerational life writing: female intellectual legacy through memoirs, correspondence, and reminiscences

Capancioni, C. (2017) Janet Ross's intergenerational life writing: female intellectual legacy through memoirs, correspondence, and reminiscences. In: Writing Lives Together: Romantic and Victorian Auto/Biography. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxford, pp. 233-244. ISBN 9781138306745

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Abstract

Three Generations of English Women: Memoirs and Correspondence of Susannah Taylor, Sarah Austin, and Lady Duff Gordon by Janet Ross is a distinctive, but underestimated, Victorian family biography. It narrates the lives of her mother, Lucie Duff Gordon, her grandmother, Sarah Austin, and identifies her great-grandmother, Susannah Taylor, as the originator of this female line of intellectual inheritance, which Ross is indebted to. This article examines how Ross’s work motivates women’s intellectual endeavours by presenting a positive example of female intellectual legacy sustained successfully by foremothers. A Victorian writer, historian and translator, she recognises in her maternal heritage a model of intergenerational mentorship and interaction that promotes intellectual engagement, exchange and transformations. Three Generations of English Women shows that female intergenerational legacy is central not only in uncovering the contribution of Ross’s foremothers but also to a deeper understanding of the development of nineteenth-century women’s intellectual lives.

Item Type: Book Section
Additional Information: © 2017 Routledge. This is an author produced version of a chapter subsequently published in Writing Lives Together: Romantic and Victorian Auto/Biography. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.
Divisions: School of Humanities
Depositing User: Dr Claudia Capancioni
Date Deposited: 14 Dec 2017 10:28
Last Modified: 01 Nov 2019 14:19
URI: https://bgro.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/247

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