British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670 to 1820 (review)

REVIEWS237 together to provide a fairly coherent general argument about Austen's exposure of the quiet evils of domestic tyranny. Although Seeber might identify the desire for a seamless argument as a monologic one, this more fully developed segment of the book highlights die relative lack of unity in the other parts. A chapter on polyphonic play in Mansfield Park's depiction of Lover's Vows looks decidedly out ofplace in the section on the "other heroine"; chapters as short as three to six pages seem to end abruptly; and quotations threaten to overwhelm the main text at many points. What Seeber wants readers to see is an Austen who is "both conservative and radical at the same time" (p. 14). The vision of a two-sided or multivalent Austen is, however, not one that even Seeber can sustain. While the book highlights the contradictory nature ofAusten's writings, it ultimately enlists dialogism to depict a particular kind of Austen, one who dialogizes in order to criticize, one who deliberately destabilizes and disrupts novelistic techniques in order to call attention to the construction of reality. For those who already perceive Austen as subversive, this study will provide additional support; other readers will no doubt be offended by the disjointed presentation and resist its angle ofvision. Audrey Bilger Claremont McKenna College Devoney Looser. British Women Writers and the Writing ofHistory, 1670 to 1820. BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press, 2000. xi + 272pp. US$45.00. ISBN 0-8018-6448-8. This book assesses women's contributions to the writing of history from the late seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century. Devoney Looser argues that a broad conceptualization of historical discourse will reveal many contributions that are otherwise neglected: "Countless female authored essays, secret histories, conduct books, biographies, memoirs, travel narratives, historical translations, fictional narratives, and poems responded to, participated in, and contributed to the development of history writing during the long eighteenth century" (p. 16). In the course ofdiscussing these writings, Looser gives extended consideration to Lucy Hutchinson 's Memoirs ofthe Life ofColonel Hutchinson, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's "Turkish Embassy Letters," Charlotte Lennox's Female Quixote, Catherine Macaulay's The History ofEnglandfrom the Revolution to the Present Time: In a Series ofLetters to a Friend (not her eight-volume History ofEnglandfrom the Accession ofJames I), Hester Lynch Piozzi's Retrospection, and Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. In addition to analysing particular texts, Looser surveys more generally the place of history in each writer's intellectual outlook. 238EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION14:2 The view that there is a "characteristic women's relationship to history" is rejected (p. 7); instead of seeking uniformity, Looser analyses her selected writers' varying "political commitments and class affiliations, their perceptions of developing genres and markets, and their ability to manipulate authorial circumstances and reputations" (p. 8). The reception given to each writer is discussed and failures are explained in relation to contemporary market conditions. For example, Looser describes Piozzi's Retrospection as "culled haphazardly from a host of works, most of them accessible to contemporary readers, though some (apparently unknown to Piozzi) were sadly out of fashion" (p. 156). The work's failure, however, results from Piozzi's lack of understanding of her audience: "Piozzi's contributions to historiography in the form of historical anecdotes or 'meditations upon history,' were not recognized as properly historical by a public that increasingly looked to women writers of national history to address other women or children, to turn history into appropriate moral lessons, and to defer to historical authorities" (p. 156). On the other hand,Jane Austen's novelistic success results from her having "positioned her writings in a way that gave them extraordinary posthumous staying power in literary history. To attribute this fact to the universality of her subject matter or to her literary genius is to ignore her professional savvy and ultimate generic good fortune " (p. 203) . The analyses ofreception throughout this book tell us much about the shifting and gendered conceptions ofhistory over the period considered . Furthermore, the book makes a plausible, if not always conclusive, case that our views about the importance of historical texts are the product of the literary marketplace. The shadow of the novel...