Routledge Narrative in the Professional Age: Transatlantic Readings of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and George Eliot (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory)

Challenging previous studies that claim anxiety and antagonism between transatlantic Victorian authors, Jennifer Cognard-Black uncovers a model of reciprocal influence among three of the most popular women writers of the era. Combining analyses of personal correspondence and print culture with close readings of key narratives, this study presents an original history of transatlantic authorship that examines how these writers invented a collaborative aesthetics both within and against the dominant discourse of professionalism. Review "Cognard-Black’s study engages and extends transatlantic studies in significant ways. She resists the ‘antagonist thesis’ of Robert Weisbuch and other critics who argue that nineteenth-century American writers felt a sense of inferiority to their British counterparts, suffering a sort of Bloomian ‘anxiety of influence.’ Cognard-Black argues instead that the transatlantic relationships of Stowe, Eliot, and Phelps were not simply examples of British influence on American writers..., but demonstrate literary collaboration and interdependence.... Narrative in the Professional Age demonstrate[s] the range, flexibility, and necessity of transatlantic literary studies..., [contributing] to the growing body of transatlantic literary, cultural, and intellectual history." ―Whitney Womack Smith, Miami University, USA About the Author Jennifer Cognard-Black teaches in the Department of English Language and Literature at St. Mary's College of Maryland.