Literature & Literary Studies

Through the fiction of Phebe Gibbes (1764–90)

Women, alienation, and prodigality in the long eighteenth century

by Kathryn Freeman

Description

Through the Fiction of Phebe Gibbes places this prolific, newly recovered English writer at the centre of the revolutionary period. Gibbes's novels mark the struggles of women for agency in an expanding British empire, from the Seven Years' War to revolutions in American, Haiti and France. With Gibbes as a nexus in a lineage of women writers from Aphra Behn to Jane Austen, Kathryn S. Freeman offers a valuable perspective on the 'long eighteenth century', with Gibbes' own evolution mirroring that of the larger period. The study traces the development of Gibbes' authorial voice from satire to irony through a range of female characters subverting patriarchal oppression. Freeman guides the reader through patterns of narrative voice, concerns with gender and sexuality, and elements of wordplay through detailed discussion of five novels representing Gibbes' evolving representation of a subversive female subjectivity.

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Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo [DRC], Congo, Republic of the, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, French Guiana, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Hongkong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, China, Macedonia [FYROM], Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Reunion, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tokelau, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Cyprus, Palestine, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Liechtenstein, Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Dominican Republic, Myanmar, Monaco

Reviews

In this study, Kathryn S. Freeman positionsthe newly recovered, prolific English novelist, Phebe Gibbes,at thehistorical and ideological nexus of the "long eighteenth century." Through the Fiction of Phebe Gibbescontributes a valuable perspective to recent scholarship reshaping the traditional paradigm of the revolutionary era. The study persuasively demonstratesthat Gibbes fills a lacuna between thetraditionally polarized endpoints of this newer periodization,connecting writers such as Aphra Behn and Eliza Haywood to Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft. Structured around detailed readings of five representative novels, the study seamlessly tracesGibbes'sevolving authorial voice. Freeman guides her reader through Gibbes'sgrowing sophistication in metanarrative, irony, and wordplay, tools through which Gibbes shapesnovels whose female characters strugglefor agencyamid Britain's increasing global empowerment and a shifting socio-political structure between the Seven Years' War and the French Revolution. Gibbespopulates her novels with a range of women whose agency subverts the generic marriage plot of the sentimental novel, including a prostitute and cross-dressing wife (Francis Clive);young women escapinga French conventdisguised as boys(TheAmerican Fugitive);a young Indian woman maintaining a powerful subjectivity in a xenophobic English village (Zoriada); and an inadvertent bigamist (Elfrida). The study returns to the legacy of women writers by linking Austen'sPersuasion to Elfrida through commonalitiesincluding female prodigality;patterns of wordplay such as sentimental and economic connotations of tenderness/tendering andfemale alienation; and the free indirect discourse through which both writers give the reader access to their heroine'sconsciousness.

Author Biography

Kathryn S. Freeman is Professor of English at the University of Miami

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Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher Manchester University Press
  • Publication Date March 2025
  • Orginal LanguageEnglish
  • ISBN/Identifier 9781526175007 / 1526175002
  • Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
  • FormatPrint PDF
  • Pages296
  • ReadershipGeneral/trade
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Dimensions234 X 156 mm
  • Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 5981
  • Reference Code15917

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