Through the Fiction of Phebe Gibbes (1764-90) - by Kathryn Freeman (Hardcover)

About the Book

Centralizing the prolific English novelist, Phebe Gibbes, in a lineage of women writers of the revolutionary period, this study traces Gibbes' evolution from satire to irony through detailed discussion of five novels representing women's struggle for agency in the context of a shifting British patriarchy and its growing global imperialism.

Book Synopsis

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.

From the Back Cover

In this study, Kathryn S. Freeman positions the newly recovered, prolific English novelist, Phebe Gibbes, at the center of the 'long eighteenth century'.

Through the fiction of Phebe Gibbes contributes a valuable perspective to recent scholarship reshaping the traditional paradigm of the revolutionary era. The study persuasively demonstrates Gibbes as a nexus in a lineage of women writers, from Aphra Behn and Eliza Haywood to Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft. Structured around detailed readings of five representative novels, the study seamlessly traces Gibbes's evolving authorial voice, presenting her growing sophistication in metanarrative, irony, and wordplay. Freeman guides the reader through the ways these tools shape Gibbes's novels, where female characters struggle for agency amid Britain's increasing global empowerment and a shifting socio-political structure between the Seven Years' War and the French Revolution. Gibbes populates her novels with a range of female characters subverting patriarchal oppression.

The study returns to the legacy of women writers by linking Austen's Persuasion to Elfrida through commonalities including female prodigality; patterns of wordplay such as sentimental and economic connotations of tenderness and female alienation; and the free indirect discourse through which both writers give the reader access to their heroine's consciousness.

About the Author

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