If middle-class women lived humdrum lives, it was clearly a relief to read about the sensational. But the one among Thurston’s novels that became notorious in the light of its author’s end was The Fly on the Wheel, whose Irish heroine, torn between two men and hemmed in by the restrictions of being a woman, commits suicide by poison.
Category: Politics
Elizabeth Smith – No Ivory Tower
Elizabeth Smith is a splendid example of the way that learning could provide a challenge and an outlet to women whose daily lives were by modern standards terribly cramped … She is also an example of the women’s tradition: though she died before she was thirty, she was remembered for years, with admiration, by other women who were trying to think or write. She shows too, less pleasingly, how reactionary cultural forces would join ranks against a woman stepping out of line, even when she did so in her mind rather than her behaviour.
Susan Cochrane, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne (c.1710-1754) Part 1
Susan Cochrane was the second daughter of the 4th Earl of Dundonald and Lady Anne Murray. Her parents married in April 1706 and her mother died in November 1710; she was one of four siblings. Susan was the second daughter,…
Admin stuff
While the blog looks the same, it is now being hosted on a new server. As a result, if you are a registered user, you might find you have to re-register to post comments. Apologies for the inconvenience! Katie Barclay…
On Woman
This poem was published in the Ennis Chronicle and Clare Advertiser on the 25th October 1809 and reflects nineteenth century humour. Happy a man may pass his life, If freed from matrimonial chains, If he’s diverted by a wife, He’s…