1st Edition
Flirtation and Courtship in Nineteenth-Century British Culture
This is volume two of a three-volume set that brings together a rich collection of primary source materials on flirtation and courtship in the nineteenth-century. Introductory essays and extensive editorial apparatus offer historical and cultural contexts of the materials included
Throughout the long nineteenth-century, a woman’s life was commonly thought to fall into three discrete developmental stages; personal formation and a gendered education; a young woman’s entrance onto the marriage market; and finally her emergence at the apogee of normative femininity as wife and mother. In all three stages of development, there was an unspoken awareness of the duplicity at the heart of this carefully cultivated femininity. What women were taught, no matter their age, was that if you desired anything in life, it behooved you to perform indifference. This meant that for women, the art of flirtation and feigning indifference were viewed as essential survival skills that could guarantee success in life.
These three volumes document the many ways in which nineteenth-century women were educated in this seemingly universal wisdom, but just as frequently managed to manipulate, subvert, and navigate their way through such proscribed norms to achieve their own desires. Presenting a wide range of documents from novels, memoirs, literary journals, newspapers, plays, poetry, songs, parlour games, and legal documents, this collection will illuminate a far more diverse set of options available to women in their quest for happiness, and a new understanding of the operations of courtship and flirtation, the "central" concerns of a nineteenth-century woman’s life.
The volumes will be of interest to scholars of history, literature, gender and cultural studies, with an interest in the nineteenth-century.
Volume 2: Female Power and the Rules of Courtship
General Introduction
Volume 2 Introduction
Editorial Notes
1. Wetenhall Wilkes, A Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice to a Young Lady . . . (1740) (London: C. Hitch, 1746), pp. 156-64.
2. The Lady’s Magazine; or Entertaining Companion . . ., 6 (January 1775) (London: G. Robinson, 1775), pp. 30-32, 189-92, 363-64, 294-96.
3. Vicesimus Knox, ‘On the Neccesity asnd Method of Encouraging in the Community the Prevalence of Virtuous Love’, in Essays Moral and Literary (London: Charles Dilly, 1785), vol. 1, pp. 150-55.
4. Catherine MacCaulay Graham, Letters on Education. With Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects (Dublin: Chamberlaine and Rice, 1790), pp. 112-17, 135-39.
5. Gentleman and Lady’s Companion: Containing the Newest Cotillions and Country Dances; to which is added, instances of Ill Manners to be carefully avoided by Youth of both sexes. (Norwhich: J. Trumbull, 1798), pp. 3-4, 22-24.
6. The Female Instructor: Or a Young Woman’s Companion Being a Guide to all the Accomplishments Which Adorn the Female Character (1811) (Liverpool, Nuttall, Fisher, and Dixon 1815), pp. 181-87.
7. ‘Courtship and Marriage’, in The London Magazine, 4 (January to April, 1826), (London, Hunt and Clark, 1826), pp. 37-44.
8. ‘Courtship’, in How to Woo; How to Win; and How to Get Married . . . (1838), Glasgow: W.R. M’Phun, 1856), pp. 31-37.
9. Arthur Freeling, The Young Bride's Book: Being Hints for Regulating the Conduct of Married Women (London: H. Washbourne, 1839), pp. 26-48.
10. Alexander Walker, Woman Physiologically Considered as to mind, morals, marriage, matrimonial slavery, infidelity and divorce (London: A. H. Bailey, 1840), pp. 98-108.
11. Charlotte Bury, The Manoeuvring Mother (1842) (London: G. Routledge, 1858), pp. 1-83.
12. Eugene Becklard, Physiological Mysteries and Revelations in Love, Courtship and Marriage (New York: Holland & Glover, 1844), pp. 65-90.
13. T.E.G. The Etiquette of Love, Courtship, and Marriage (London, Simpkin Marshall and Co., 1847), pp. 30-72.
14. Albert Smith, The Natural History of the Flirt (London: D. Bogue, 1848), 7-107.
15. T. S. Arthur, Advice to Young Ladies on Their Duties and Conduct in Life (1849) (London: J. S. Hodson, 1855), pp. 126-40.
16. The Etiquette of Love Courtship and Marriage. To Which is Added the Etiquette of Politeness (1850) (Halifax: Milner and Sowerby, 1859), pp. 28-44.
17. The New Guide to Matrimony; or, the Whole Art of Courtship . . . (Newcastle-on-Tyne: Bowman, c. 1850), pp. 2-4.
18. Etiquette of Courtship and Matrimony: With a Complete Guide to the forms of a Wedding (London: David Bogue, 1852), pp. 20-46.
19. A Manual of the Etiquette of Love, Courtship and Marriage, by a Lady (London: Thomas Allman, 1853), pp. 3-29, 43-50.
20. H.W.H., How to Choose a Wife'(London: Partridge, Oakey and Co., 1855), pp. iii-x, 40-44.
21. H.W.H., How to Choose a Husband (London: Partridge and Co., 1856), pp. iii-xvii, 18-21.
22. Charlotte Bury, The Lady of Fashion (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1856), vol. 1, pp. 33-65.
23. George Watson, Etiquette For All, or Rules of Conduct . . . (Glasgow: George Watson, 1861), pp. 23-63
24. J.B.S., Anatomy of Flirtation: Being a Pathognomical Diagnosis of That Delectable Pastime (Manchester : J.Heywood, 1886), pp. 3-15.
Index
Biography
Ghislaine McDayter is Professor in the Department of English, Bucknell Univesity, USA
John Hunter is Professor of Comparative Humanities, Bucknell University, USA
