Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904) is the most important
nineteenth-century British writer and activist not heretofore
treated in a full-length biography. An independent professional
woman, she worked to improve conditions for delinquent girls and
for the sick poor, promoted university degrees for women, roused
support for the Union during the American Civil War, advocated for
victims of marital violence, campaigned for women's suffrage, and
engaged in a long-running battle with leading physicians decrying
the use of animals in medical experiments. She was centrally
located among the circle of London intellectuals who engaged the
era's significant debates and was a respected religious and moral
thinker as well. Bridging the gap between "high" and "low"
journalism, she published in prestigious journals as well as in
popular monthly magazines. At long last, Sally Mitchell gives this
remarkable woman her due.
The only source of information about Cobbe's life has been her
1894 autobiography--and even that is considered by many scholars to
be less than forthcoming. Over the past several years, Mitchell has
unearthed extensive material by or related to Cobbe, dramatically
increasing and updating the information now available about this
major figure in social and literary history. She has transcribed
hundreds of Cobbe's unpublished letters, drawn on archival papers
and records for information about Cobbe's family and places where
she lived and worked, and supplemented all the newly available
material with instructive selections from Cobbe's anonymous
journalism as well as other publications. Further, through the
cooperation of Cobbe's heirs, Mitchell has been able to use
significant materials that remain in private hands, including
family letters and account books, a diary Cobbe's father kept
during her first thirty-four years, a manuscript account of her
1858 journey to Egypt and Palestine, and a number of Cobbe's
sketchbooks and photograph albums.
An accessible narrative biography, Frances Power Cobbe traces
the details of Cobbe's life and work, analyzes her writing, and
sets both in the context of the social and intellectual debates of
her time.
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