Ruth Perry

Clarissa's Daughters, or the History of Innocence Betrayed: how women writers rewrote Richardson

Thus, towards the end of the eighteenth century a change came about which, if I were rewriting history, I should describe more fully and think of greater importance than the Crusades or the Wars of the Roses. The middle‐class woman began to write. (Virginia Woolf, A Room of Ones Own)

Henry James' Sexuality and His Obscure Hurt

His brother William James married late, as he came to everything late. He seriously pursued painting, medicine, and experimental science for years before settling on philosophy and psychology as his life’s work. Henry, on the other hand, single-mindedly pursued his literary career and steered clear of intimate relationships with women-to the eventual chagrin of his parents. Indeed, shortly after he settled in London, his mother wrote to him urging him to get married : &dquo;You know Father used to say to you, that if you would only fall in love it would be the making of you ....&dquo;1 William and Henry and their sister Alice came from an extraordinarily intellectual home in which education was taken very seriously. They spent a peripatetic childhood-hopping about between New York, New England, and Europe-due in part to their father’s restlessness and in part to his theory that they should be exposed to the very best the world could offer. The frequent moves and the selfconsciousness of this educational process often threw the boys back on themselves, making them introspective and thoughtful beyond their years. Indeed, it is a commonplace to say that William James’ psychology reads like fiction, and that Henry James’ fiction reads like psychology. Their father was an independently wealthy philosopher involved with the avant-garde intellectuals of his day. Emerson, Alcott, Godwin, Ripley, Hawthorne, etc. came in and out of the James’ home, bringing with them bohemian views on sex and religion and politics-the subjects of Henry James Sr.’s lectures and papers. Although he was respected by his fellow intellectuals, he was never very successful in any of his enterprises. None of his interests were anchored by material ambition; he tended to flit from cause to cause, issue to issue. It was undoubtedly partly his example which made it hard for William to settle down into a serious and lasting interest.

Quiet Rebellion: The Fictional Heroines of Eliza Fowler Haywood.@@@Fictions of Feminine Desire: Disclosures of Helloise.@@@Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England.@@@Mothering the Mind: Twelve Studies of Writers and Their Silent Partners.

Recognised period specialists look at a wide variety of nurturing relationships between men and women, both sexual and platonic. Mothering is examined as a component of marriage and as a sustaining force in less traditional but equally creative relationships. In some instances, actual mothers provide the encouragement and unconditional approvals that are hallmarks of the mothering role. Crucial questions are posed such as how and why did these attachments evolve? Are such relationships mutually beneficial? The book offers a balanced feminist approach and perspective and is an important contribution not only to the areas of biography and psychoanalytical criticism, but also to womens studies.

Revamping Literary History

Both books under review here are about women writers of the eighteenth century: Susan Carlile’s edited collection, Masters of the Marketplace, focuses on four from the 1750s—Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Lennox, Sarah Scott, and Sarah Fielding—and Jennie Batchelor, in her Women’s Work: Labour, Gender, Authorship, 1750–1830 compares the women authors of this decade to those later in the century. Carlile’s collection insists on how professionally successful these writers women were, and how influential in determining the direction of the novel. Batchelor investigates how women thought about their literary labors and how these perceptions evolved over the course of the century. Both books seek to augment traditionally male-centered literary history and to provide new ways of understanding the contribution of gender to the construction of the novel.

Book Reviews : HANDBOOK OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY. Edited by Benjamin B. Wolman. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965. Pp. 1,596. Price,

to increased negative feelings (anxiety, marital tensions, and job dissatisfaction) do not produce concomitant decreases in positive feelings; similarly, forces contributing to development of positive feelings (social interaction and active participation in one’s environment) do not lessen negative feelings. A dimension of affectivity may cut across the relative strength of the two types of feelings. Subsequent research in this series, building upon such a cautious yet provocative base, will merit careful attention.

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STUDIES IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. Edited by Derek L. Phillips. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1965. Pp. 262. Phillips’ purpose in producing this volume is to present to the student of sociology an introduction to some of the most significant literature in the field and, at the same time, to illumine the process by which accruals to sociological knowledge are obtained. To accomplish this, he has excerpted sections of five monographs on research recently completed. Each presents a good example of the modem scientific sociologist at work; each presents some key findings of the work selected as well as discussions of some of the methodological and conceptual problems encountered. The selections include central portions of Lenski’s &dquo;The Religious Factor&dquo;, Schramm et al’s study of television, Coleman’s inquiry into adolescent society, Lazarsfeld and Thielens’ examination of the impact of McCarthyism on academic freedom, and the investigation of mental health in Midtown Manhattan, carried