ABSTRACT
Eliza Lynn Linton made her literary reputation as a polemicist who, in her many novels and periodical articles, tackled controversial social issues. Linton was best known for her criticisms of women's emancipation, even though she herself was an ambitious independent woman who had separated from her husband. Eliza Lynn Linton determined even as a young girl that she would make her mark in the world as a novelist. Securing a position writing for the newspaper the Morning Chronicle from 1848 to 1849, she was the first woman in England to have a regular salary as a journalist. In 1864, the Lintons separated, a separation which became permanent in 1866, and Eliza Lynn Linton was able to start writing novels again. In her middle years, however she modified her radical views, and her novels such as The Rebel of the Family reflect her growing conservatism and ambivalence about women's rights.
