Factory Girl: Ellen Johnston and Working-class Poetry in Victorian ScotlandIt is at last being recognized that, contrary to common understanding, there were working-class women poets in the nineteenth century. Yet this growing awareness is rarely accompanied by a sustained engagement with their poetry. Painstaking research into the life and work of an author remains constricted to the Brownings and Rossettis of both sexes. The present study breaks with this academic habit. It is the first critical biography of the Glaswegian writer who signed her poems as 'The Factory Girl'. It is an essay in recovery and exploration, situating Ellen Johnston at the intersection of gender, class and nation. It documents her range of subjects, styles and voices. The book is concluded by a selection of Ellen Johnston's verse. |
Contents
Working Women Writing Verse | 9 |
Bangkok and Glasgow | 22 |
Critical StumblingBlocks | 30 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
appear Autobiography bairns beauty Belfast bonnie Britain Campbell cotton Crimean War critical death Dundee Edinburgh Ellen Johnston Factory Girl female feminist fiction frae Garibaldi gender gentry George Gilfillan Gerald Massey Glasgow Sentinel Gustav Klaus ha'e heart Husband industry Joanna Russ John John Clare Lancashire Last Sark Lines literary live London Lord Lucy the Factory male man's Mary Collier middle-class mill morning mother muse ne'er never Nicoll nineteenth century passion Penny Post People's Journal Poems and Songs poet's poetic Poetry in Victorian poor power-loom proletarian puir wad dee quoted Radical Renfrew Robert Tressell roon Scotland SCOTTISH STUDIES sexual Smout social Songs of Ellen speaker stanza Stephen Duck struggle T. C. Smout thee thou Verdant Factory verse voice volume weaver weel William Thom woman Women Poets Women's Poetry Women's Writing workers working-class poets working-class writers