ABSTRACT
The feminine middlebrow novel is highly reflexive, filled with depictions of reading and references to other writers and novels, and Humble argues that this elaborate intertextuality establishes a distinct identity for their readers. This chapter argues that it is indeed the way that von Arnim and Taylor have been read, as pleasurable and delightful entertainment, which has relegated them to the middlebrow. It demonstrates that both Taylor and von Arnim constantly examine and question the restrictions society places upon women, but they do not depict escape from these restrictions. The chapter also argues that one of these ways of expressing subversive ideas, while appearing to write with circumspection and decorum, is through comedy. The difficulties in defining the terms 'wit', 'comedy' and 'humour', and drawing boundaries between them, is demonstrated by the contortions of the translator of Sigmund Freud's Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious.
