ABSTRACT
The positive image of the daughter at home was expressed through prescriptive and imaginative literature, and through art, throughout the Victorian period. Two main types of father-daughter relationships appear in Victorian imagery about family life. The first type is the relationship that would exist in a happy, successful family, one in which both mother and father were alive, and in which the father had achieved worldly success, and at the same time possessed the appropriate qualities of masculine strength and sound morality. The second example of the good girl’s role in the life of a father experiencing financial reverses is from a tale entitled The Little Emigrant, which was published in 1826. Victorian portrayals of the relationship between the very young sister and brother contained an element of nostalgia. Certain images of girlhood figuring in literature and art are not directly or exclusively related to father, brother or mother.
