Walsingham (Broadview Literary Texts)
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Walsingham is both a lively story and a commentary by the author on her society's constraints upon women. The novel follows the story of two main characters, Walsingham Ainsforth and his cousin, Sir Sidney Aubrey, whose birth disinherits Walsingham. Sidney, educated in France, later returns to England, where he continues to interfere with Walsingham's prospects by wooing away the objects of his love. Eventually, Sidney's true reasons are revealed: Sidney is in fact a woman, who was passed off as a son by her mother so as to ensure that she would be the family's heir. Later, she fell in love with Walsingham, and one by one convinced the women he courted to leave him for herself. Upon revealing her true identity, she and Walsingham declare their mutual love and wed, sharing the family's estate.
The appendices include: contemporary reviews; historical and literary accounts of 18th-century cross-dressers (female-to-male); and selections from contemporary works that focus on the figure of the "fallen" woman.
About the Author
Julie A. Shaffer is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
Walsingham (Broadview Literary Texts),Julie A. Shaffer,Broadview Press,155111299X,Fiction,Fiction - General,General,Literary,Romance - General,Biography: general,NATURAL HISTORY, COUNTRY LIFE & PETS
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