Andrew McInnes

Wollstonecraft's Legion: Feminism in Crisis, 1799

Mary Wollstonecrafts death in 1797, followed by the publication of and subsequent scandal surrounding William Godwins Memoirs in 1798, instantiates a crisis at the origins of modern feminism. Robbed of their most vocal proponent of womens rights, feminist writers published polemics urgently arguing for Wollstonecrafts project to be continued. Mary Hays’ Appeal to the Men of Great Britain in Behalf of the Women, Mary Robinsons Letter to the Women of England, and Mary Ann Radcliffes Female Advocate all strive to further Wollstonecrafts political agenda, arguing for a more or less radical expansion of womens rights. Taken together, these texts answer Robinsons call for “a legion of Wollstonecrafts”. On the other hand, Hannah Mores Strictures on Female Education (1799) offers a conservative rebuttal of Wollstonecrafts radical project. Mores aggressive disavowal of Wollstonecraft, her suspicion of female philosophy and womens writing bring these elements, submerged in Robinson, Hays and Radcliffes work, into sharp focus. Each writer negotiates conflicting representations of the female philosopher and woman writer in order to struggle free from Wollstonecrafts sometimes oppressive textual and personal legacy. Indeed, in these texts, Wollstonecraft herself is Legion: at once, martyr, example, warning and monster.

Labyrinths of Conjecture: The Gothic Elsewhere in Jane Austen's Emma

In recent criticism, Jane Austens Northanger Abbey has been reconsidered as a comic rather than mock-Gothic novel, shifting its mockery onto a variety of other targets: domineering men, unwary readers, the violence underpinning English domesticity. I argue that Austen continues her engagement with the Gothic, beyond Northanger Abbey, using Emma as an exemplary case. Emma not only includes explicit mentions of Gothic novels such as Ann Radcliffes The Romance of the Forest, but implicitly reformulates the relationships between Female Gothic figures: finding a frail, victimised heroine in Jane Fairfax and a seductive femme fatale in Emma herself.