The History of British Women’s Writing, 1945-1975 (eBook) von Clare Hanson

Introduction- Clare Hanson and Susan Watkins.- 1. Post-War Fiction: Realism and Experimentalism: Kaye Mitchell.- 2. Lyric, Narrative and Performance in Poetry: Jane Dowson.- 3 Look Back in Gender: Drama: Gabriele Griffin.- 4. Journalism: Deborah Chambers.- 5. Angry Young Women: Education, Class, and Politics: Mary Eagleton.- 6. Sex, Censorship and Identity: Kerry Myler.- 7. The Second Wave: Leanne Bibby.- 8. The Aftermath of War: Kristin Bluemel.- 9. Responding to the Holocaust: Sue Vice.- 10. Internal Empire: Katie Gramich.- 11. The Transcultural Tryst in Migration, Exile and Diaspora: Sandra Courtman.- 12. Witness Literature in the post-war novels of Storm Jameson and Doris Lessing: Elizabeth Maslen.- 13. Double Trouble: Helen MacInness and Agatha Christies Speculative Spy Thrillers: Phyllis Lassner.- 14. Historical Fictions: Diana Wallace.- 15. Childrens Literature: Ideologies of the Past, Present and Future: Catherine Butler.- 16. Science Fiction: Susan Watkins.- Index.

This volume reshapes our understanding of British literary culture from 1945-1975 by exploring the richness and diversity of womens writing of this period. Essays by leading scholars reveal the range and intensity of women writers engagement with post-war transformations including the founding of the Welfare State, the gradual liberalization of attitudes to gender and sexuality and the reconfiguration of Britain and the empire in the context of the Cold War. Attending closely to the politics of form, the sixteen essays range across literary, middlebrow and popular genres, including espionage thrillers and historical fiction, childrens literature and science fiction, as well as poetry, drama and journalism. They examine issues including realism and experimentalism, education, class and politics, the emergence of second-wave feminism, responses to the Holocaust and mass migration and diaspora. The volume offers an exciting reassessment of womens writing at a time of radical social change and rapid cultural expansion. 

Clare Hanson is Professor of Twentieth Century Literature at the University of Southampton, UK. She has published widely on the short story and on twentieth-century womens writing and is the author ofHysterical Fictions: the Womans Novel in the Twentieth Century(Palgrave, 2000), A Cultural History of Pregnancy: Pregnancy, Medicine and Culture in Britain, 1750-2000(Palgrave, 2004) and Eugenics, Literature and Culture in Post-war Britain(2012). Between 2010 and 2012 she was co-editor of the journalContemporary Womens Writing. Her current research explores the relationship between genetics and the literary imagination.

Susan Watkins is Professor in the School of Cultural Studies and Humanities at Leeds Beckett University, UK. She is the author ofTwentieth-Century Women Novelists: Feminist Theory into Practice (Palgrave, 2001) andDoris Lessing (2010), and co-editor ofScandalous Fictions: The Twentieth-Century Novel in the Public Sphere (Palgrave, 2006) andDoris Lessing: Border Crossings(2009). She was Chair of the Contemporary Womens Writing Association from 2010-2014 and co-editor of theJournal of Commonwealth Literaturefrom 2010-2015.