 
Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres (Hardcover)
The rise and fall of the English governess, the domestic heroine who inspired Victorian literature’s greatest authors.
Between the 1780s and the end of the nineteenth century, an army of sad women took up residence in other people’s homes, part and yet not part of the family, not servants, yet not equals. To become a governess, observed Jane Austen in Emma, was to “retire from all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace and hope, to penance and mortification for ever.” However, in an ironic paradox, the governess, so marginal to her society, was central to its fiction—partly because governessing was the fate of some exceptionally talented women who later wrote novels based on their experiences. But personal experience was only one source, and writers like Wilkie Collins, William Makepeace Thackeray, Henry James, and Jane Austen all recognized that the governess’s solitary figure, adrift in the world, offered more novelistic scope than did the constrained and respectable wife. Ruth Brandon weaves literary and social history with details from the lives of actual governesses, drawn from their letters and journals, to craft a rare portrait of real women whose lives were in stark contrast to the romantic tales of their fictional counterparts. Governess will resonate with the many fans of Jane Austen and the Brontës, whose novels continue to inspire films and books, as well as fans of The Nanny Diaries and other books that explore the longstanding tension between mothers and the women they hire to raise their children.
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"Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres "
by Ruth Brandon
Used, in good condition Hardcover w/Dust Jacket!
320 Pages, Walker & Company Press, 2008!
First Edition!
Library Journal
Brandon (The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini) presents a poignant portrait of governesses in 18th- and 19th-century England. Using letters, journals, and other writings of the time, she sheds light on the female circumstance by showing how these women, some of whom eventually became famous, lived and wrote about their solitary lives in the employment of wealthy families. Unlike the romanticized, fictional representations found in such works as Charlotte BrontA"'s Jane Eyre, the reality for governesses was often a lonely and isolated life. Brandon focuses on six women: Agnes Porter, Mary Wollstonecraft, Claire Clairmont, Nelly Weeton, Anna Leonowens, and Anna Jameson. As a biographer, she provides brilliantly detailed backgrounds on her subjects, leaving the reader wanting still more. However, Brandon loses touch slightly with the specifics on governesses; she could have done a better job in providing more focus on the profession itself and its employees. She does succeed in creating a very interesting look into the struggle to create parity between the sexes in this era, especially regarding education. Recommended for both public and academic libraries.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
1 'There is nobody in the house with whom I can be on equal terms' 1
2 'In these days, there do not exist such people as Miss Porter' 25
3 Mary and her sisters: the problem of girls' education 41
4 Claire Clairmont: after the fall 93
5 Nelly Weeton: the cruelty of men 148
6 Anna and the King: the unbreakable bonds of class 185
7 Anna Jameson: the pursuit of independence 208
8 The Reform Firm: what do women want? 232
Notes 258
Select Bibliography 277
Index 286
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