Comedy and the Feminine Middlebrow Novel: Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Taylor (Literary Texts and the Popular Marketplace)

For far too long the academic world has dismissed female writers, especially those whose forte is perceived as being 'comedy', as being not worthy of attention. In this excellent study, Erica Brown has produced an original book that will become indispensable to students of the novels of Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Taylor. Both authors wrote novels which were popular and enjoyable in their time, but their skill at using comedy, along with the success of their novels, has led to the refusal of most critics and academics to study their work seriously. Erica Brown looks beneath the surface and discovers what there is for all to see, if only they would look - "it is formal technique that controls the creation of much of the meaning". She demonstrates that this complexity of style demands our serious attention. These novels have been condemned to obscurity because they fall outside accepted norms of academic criteria and categorization; their intricate layers of meaning have never even been properly examined, let alone uncovered. Now, we can follow in Erica Brown's footsteps, and open our eyes: we have much to learn and be the richer for it.