Other Mothers

<i>Other Mothers</i> edited by Ellen Bayuk Rosenman and Claudia C. Klaver offers a range of essays that open a conversation about Victorian motherhood as a wide-ranging distinctive experience and idea. In spite of its importance however it is one of the least-studied aspects of the Victorian era subsumed under discussions of femininity and domesticity.<br> <br> This collection addresses this void revealing the extraordinary diversity of Victorian motherhood. Exploring diaries novels and court cases with contexts ranging from London to Egypt to Australia these varied accounts take the collection beyond the maternal ideal to consider the multiple unpredictable ways in which motherhood was experienced and imagined in this formative historical period.<br> <br> <i>Other Mothers</i> joins revisionist approaches to femininity that now characterize Victorian studies. Its contents trace intersections among gender race and class; question the power of separate spheres ideology; and insist on the context-specific nature of social roles. The fifteen essays in this volume contribute to the fields of literary criticism history cultural studies and history.