Louisa Sidney Stanhope

Louisa Sidney Stanhope. The Crusaders. An Historical Romance of the Twelfth Century.

London:  Minerva Press for A. K. Newman and Co., 1820.

 

Biographical Information about Louisa Sidney Stanhope

"Obscure author of 17 novels, many for the Minerva Press, (Dorothy Blakey, 1939, comments adversely on her work and suspects a pseudonym). Louisa Sydney Stanhope begins in 1806 in the mode of Rousseauvian sensibility: Ideal woman is gentle, sensitive, weak, and passive, but also the 'natural slave' of passionate feelings. She attacks the French, frivolous high society, libertinism, and arranged marriages with women as merchandise 'consigned over, passing from vendor to buyer.' Titles include The Bandit's Bride, 1807, The Crusaders, 1820, and Rosalie, or, The Outlaw's Bride (1842). The historical novels (for which she claims diverse chronicle sources) set narrative comments on the list virtues of subordination, filial obedience, wifely submission, and chivalry against present day license. In The Crusaders, 1820, a powerful plea for sexual equality subsides into the usual images of propriety and submission. Runnemede (1825) and The Seer of Tiviotdale (1827) stand out with strong, active women and some hint of more liberal politics, but Louisa Sydney Stanhope retreats into conservatism in the 1830s." (1020)

SOURCES

Blain, Virginia, et al. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1990.

-- Prepared by Chris Groskopf, University of Nebraska, April 2006
© Chris Groskopf, 2006.