ABSTRACT
When Mathilde Blind produced the first book on George Eliot in 1883, she situated the novelist at the outset in the context of her female predecessors, notably Jane Austen and the Bronts. Blinds summary here, like the 1860 quotation with which this study began, is an instance of canon-forming based on the achievements of nineteenth-century women novelists. It also demonstrates the widespread contemporary tendency to discuss their work in terms of masculine and feminine qualities. The writings of the women critics focused on here reflect both these trends. Jane Austen's life and works drew from women critics much insightful commentary in the nineteenth century. There was a great deal of writing on Austen in the nineteenth century which characterised her as the miniaturist on little bit of ivory, following her own apparent cue: what she achieved, she accomplished with perfection, but her aims, especially as regards the social and intellectual scope of her fiction, were limited.
