Woman's Thoughts About Women, A.
[Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock]. A Woman's Thoughts About Women. London: Hurst and Blackett, Limited, [1858].
8vo.; preliminaries and edges lightly foxed; frontispiece engraving with tissue guard; 16 pages of ads in the rear; reddish brown cloth, stamped in gilt.
First edition of this collection of essays, some of which appeared previously in Chambers’ Journal. Craik states in her Preface that these “thoughts:”
do not pretend to solve any problems, to lay down any laws, to decide out of one life’s experience and within the limits of one volume, any of those great questions which have puzzled generations, and will proably puzzle gnerations more. They life the banner of no party; and assert the opinions of no clique. They do not even attempt an originality, which, in treating of a subjket like the present, would be either dangerous or impossible.
What she does hope to accomplish is to offer to women “simply the expression of what they have themselves, consciously or unconsciously, oftentimes thought; and the more deeply, perhaps, because it has never come to the surface in words or writing.” Chapter topics include “something to do,” “self-dependence,” “female professions,” “female handicaps,” “female servants,” “the mistress of a family,” “female friendships,” “gossip,” “women of the world,” “happy and unhappy women,” “lost women,” and “women growing old.” Amanda DeWees writes that Craik
urges women to become financially and emotionally independent, thus earning self-respect as well as self-reliance. She also advocates a sense of unity and sisterhood among women, encouraging disregard of class boundaries and empathetic understanding toward ‘fallen’ women. Although she feels that marriage and sisterhood represent the most satisfying goal women can attain, she notes that they should be prepared to support themselves should this destiny not fall to their lot. She does not call for revolutionary change…But she accepts as universal women’s need for independent, meaningful lives and accords respect to women’s emotional as well as financial needs. (Encyclopedia of British Women Writers)
Despite a resume that included dozens of books, Craik (1826-1887) is best known for John Halifax, Gentleman, which was published in the same year as A Woman’s Thoughts About Women and which has never been out of print. Craik earned respect early in her career, drawing favorable comparisons with George Eliot and the Bronte sisters. The popularity of her novels, however, eventually relegated her to the somewhat lowly status of “woman’s novelist,” where she languished unattended until quite recently. Feminist critics have rediscovered her and a resurrection of her work is underway, and will perhaps challenge the claim made by her eulogizer in the Dictionary of National Biography: “She was not a genius, and she does not express the ideals and aspirations of women of exceptional genius; but the tender and philanthropic, and at the same time energetic and practical womanhood of ordinary life has never had amore sufficient representative.”
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