Mathilde Blind: Late-Victorian Culture and the Woman of Letters

337 Pages·2017·2.935 MB·English

by  James Diedrick

Mathilde Blind
Victorian Literature and Culture Series
Jerome J. McGann and Herbert F. Tucker,
Editors
Mathilde Blind
Late-Victorian Culture
and the Woman of Letters
James Diedrick
University of Virginia Press
Charlottesville and London
University of Virginia Press
© 2016 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
First published 2016
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Diedrick, James, 1951– author.
Title: Mathilde Blind: Late-Victorian culture and
the Woman of Letters / James Diedrick.
Description: Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2017. | Series: Victorian
literature and culture series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016012003 | ISBN 9780813939315 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780813939322 (e- book)
Subjects: LCSH: Blind, Mathilde, 1841–1896. | Women authors, English—19th
century—Biography. | Women critics—Great Britain—19th century—
Biography. | Feminists—Great Britain—19th century—Biography. | Blind,
Mathilde, 1841–1896—Political and social views. | Blind, Mathilde, 1841–1896—
Interpretation and criticism.
Classification: LCC PR4149.B55 Z55 2017 | DDC 821 / . 8 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https: / / lccn .loc .gov / 2016012003
Cover art: Mathilde Blind, by Harold Rathbone, 1889. (Private collection;
photo © Philip Mould Ltd, London / Bridgeman Images)
To the memory of my parents

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Chronology xvii
1 The Making of a Cosmopolitan:
1841–1867 1
2 Romancing Shelley and Others:
1868–1870 37
3 A Pioneering Female Aesthete:
1871–1872 71
4 Translating Strauss, Traveling in
Scotland: 1873–1874 104
5 Freethinkers and Feminists:
1874–1881 135
6 Biographer, Novelist, Polemical
Poet: 1882–1887 174
7 A Leading New Woman:
1888–1893 204
8 “But a Bird of Passage”: 1893–1896 233
Notes 263
Bibliography 293
Index 305

Illustrations
Algernon Charles Swinburne, ca. 1865 33
Mathilde Blind, ca. 1870 46
Richard Garnett, 1901 56
William Michael Rossetti, 1865 61
Joaquin Miller, 1874 78
Mathilde Blind, by Lucy Madox
Brown, 1872 83
A. Mary F. Robinson, ca. 1880 142
Ford Madox Brown, ca. 1870 146
Mathilde Blind, by Ford Madox
Brown, 1876 149
Vernon Lee, by John Singer Sargent,
1881 171
Jean et Jacques, by Marie Bashkirtseff,
1883 207
Arthur Symons, ca. 1885 212
Mathilde Blind, by Harold Rathbone,
1889 221
Frontispiece by Ford Madox Brown for
Mathilde Blind’s Dramas in Miniature,
1891 223
Mathilde Blind, ca. 1890 229