«

This multifaceted study, devoted to the various representations of female characters in the Victorian and neo-Victorian novel, relates to the debate concerning the impact of cultural tradition on modern literature. It offers an intertextual approach to female protagonists in such novels as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1859), Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Clare Boylan’s Emma Brown (2003), Syrie James’ The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë (2009) and Gail Carriger’s Soulless (2009). Applying various aspects of literary theory, Aleksandra Tryniecka focuses in her book on the portrait of the woman in Victorian society as emerging from the intertextual dialogue of the present with the past.

In its range and originality, this excellent book will appeal to both academically-minded bibliophiles and to those who are just avid readers of Victorian and neo-Victorian literature.

»

Anna Kędra-Kardela, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University