Bibliograph

Outsiders, five women writers who changed the world, Lyndall Gordon

Type

Label

Outsiders, five women writers who changed the world, Lyndall Gordon

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

resource.biographical

collective biography

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Outsiders

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1057740178

Responsibility statement

Lyndall Gordon

Sub title

five women writers who changed the world

Summary

Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner and Virginia Woolf: they all wrote dazzling books that forever changed the way we see history. In "Outsiders," award-winning biographer Lyndall Gordon shows how these five novelists shared more than talent. In a time when a woman's reputation was her security, each of these women lost hers. They were unconstrained by convention, writing against the grain of their contemporaries, prophetically imagining a different future. We have long known the individual greatness of each of these writers, but in linking their creativity to their lives as outcasts, Gordon throws new light on the genius they share. All five lost their mothers in childbirth or at a young age. With no female role model present, they learned from books -- and sometimes from an enlightened mentor. Crucially, each had to imagine what a woman could be in order to invent a voice of her own. The passion in their own lives infused their fiction. Writing with passionate intelligence of her own, Gordon reveals that these renegade writers inspired a new breed of women who wished to change a world locked in war, violence, exploitation and sexual abuse. Gordon's biographies have always shown the indelible connection between life and art: an intuitive, exciting and revealing approach that has been highly praised. In "Outsiders," she crafts nuanced portraits of Shelley, Brontë, Eliot, Schreiner and Woolf, naming each of these writers as prodigy, visionary, "outlaw," orator and explorer, and shows how they came, they saw and they left us changed. Today, following the tsunami of women's protest at wide-spread abuse, we do more than read them; we listen and live with their astonishing bravery and eloquence. -- Inside cover

Table Of Contents

List of illustrations -- Foreword -- Prodigy - Mary Shelley -- Visionary - Emily Brontë -- 'Outlaw' - George Eliot -- Orator - Olive Schreiner -- Explorer - Virginia Woolf -- The Outsiders Society -- Sources -- Further reading -- Acknowledgements -- Index

resource.variantTitle

Five women writers who changed the worldOutsiders, 5 women writers who changed the world

Classification