Femininity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature and Society: From Dagger-Fans to Suffragettes

by Emelyne Godfrey

This exploration into the development of women's self-defence from 1850 to 1914 features major writers, including H.G. Wells, Elizabeth Robins and Richard Marsh, and encompasses an unusually wide-ranging number of subjects from hatpin crimes to the development of martial arts for women.

Genres: Feminism

206 pages, Hardcover

First published October 26, 2012

About the author

Dr. Emelyne Godfrey PhD

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm afraid this was another book that was mostly literary criticism disguised as social history. I'm just not sure studying a small handfull of novels closely gives you a proper sense of a period, particularly a period that has so many other sources availble. I went and heard the author speak and she was very interesting and talked a lot about martial arts and how they were used by the suffragettes and other women to defend themselves and the different schools that were popular. I thought it sounded very interesting. Unfortunately only one chapter of the book really focused on the actual uses in reality. Nearly all the other instances were in fiction. One scene in Anne Veronica getting probably more attention than the reality. Parts of this were very interesting but overall it mostly talked about books I hadn't read and where I it mentioned the books I had read (like Anne Veronica which I liked and the Beetle which I didn't) I don't really felt like I got to any greater understanding. Most of the discussion seemed to be this happened, then this happened and tying them in with other events in similar novels.

[Steve Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Godfrey does a fairly good job of doing a literary analysis of violence facing women in Victorian literature. She has less to work with in looking at risks women faced in society, however. I think she had less material to work with. She chronicles how women studied jujitsu in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and shows how that is paralleled by mention women's self defense in the literature of the age.

This is a good book for the nerd who is into books as well as martial arts. As I read through it I got some excellent leads for books to download off various internet archives…all over 75 years old and all free.