ABSTRACT
The fiction-shelves of the circulating libraries had to be kept filled with a great selection of novels to meet the needs of hungry readers, each with their own particular tastes. The well-known and successful authors were all, of course, well represented, by copies of their latest works, as well as of those already established and in continuing demand. Before that, wrote Nigel Cross, ‘women writers were expected to promote gentility and to remain oblivious of low life. The sensation novels of the 1860s, which derived their enormous popularity from the shocking behaviour of their good-looking heroes and heroines, were nearly all written by women writers. It seems that having been diagnosed as incapable of profound literary endeavour, many women novelists became much more relaxed than their male colleagues; less pompous and prudish and less concerned with the dignity of their profession.’ Drunkenness, violence, poaching, smuggling, and even body-snatching were activities commonly fearful to women and children.
