Victor Hugo once said There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. For 55 years, it had not even dawned on me that I was a writer. My first clue should have been when I realized that there absolutely wasn't anything about which I didn't have an opinion. For five years I published a weekly newsletter for my church. No one else seemed to want to do it, and it was something that I loved doing. The fourteen years that I worked as an Insurance Agent should also have given me a nudge. I often gave group presentations that included stories about so many of my life experiences. Many clients encouraged me to write them down and share them with others. But it took a life-changing crisis that made me take a look within and find why God had placed me here. I have written a collection of insights that I gained during the first half of my life. Each chapter begins with a joke, a thought or a scripture that I believe God laid on my heart. The body of each chapter consists of a relating experience, insight or lesson that I gained. And each chapter is completed with a prayer. I have noticed how people are enjoying inspirational books that are also a Quick read such as mine. I submitted Chapter Five to the Indianapolis Star and it was published in the Faith and Values section of that newspaper. I think that one sign that a book could be good is when the reader wants more. Each person who has read these chapters did exactly that and asked if they can pass on to others what they have enjoyed or gained from my book. I would like to thank you in advance for taking the time to read some of what I believe God has shown me in my life. Come Share The Cookies. Lord, bless this reader, Amen.

When Scenes of Clerical Life appeared anonymously in 1853 the Saturday Review pictured its author, George Eliot, as a bearded Cambridge clergyman and the revered father of several children. When Anthony Trollope published Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel anonymously in 1867, the London Review argued that the internal evidence required the author to be female.

Gender played a pivotal role in the reception of Victorian novels and was not only an analytical category used by Victorian reviewers to conceptualize, interpret, and evaluate novels, but in some cases was the primary category. This book analyzes over 100 nineteenth-century reviews of several prominent novels, both canonical and non-canonical, chosen for the various ways in which they conformed with and deviated from conventional gender stereotypes. Among these titles are Charles Reade's It Is Never Too Late to Mend, Emily Bront's Wuthering Heights, Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers and Charlotte Yonge's The Heir of Redclyffe.

This study goes beyond the intuitive notion that a double standard existed in the Victorian era which undervalues the work of women writers. Male writers, such as Trollope, were in fact also vulnerable to the masculine/feminine hierarchies of Victorian literary criticism. Some women writers, on the other hand, actually benefitted from gendered evaluations. Charlotte Yonge, for instance, conformed so closely to the ideal and idealized view of feminine writing that she is chivalrously exempted from more critical examinations of intellectual content. Having unearthed often ignored or neglected sources, Thompson examines the ways in which Victorian constructions of literary reputations were filtered through preconceptions about gender and writing.

This collection of essays focuses attention on a number of Victorian women writers popular in their own time but forgotten or neglected by literary history, from Margaret Oliphant and Charlotte Yonge to Mary Ward, Marie Corelli, "Ouida" and E. Nesbit. Particular emphasis is given to writings concerned with "the woman question." Discussions of marriage, matriarchy and divorce, satire, suffragette writing, writing for children, and links between literature and art illuminate the complex cultural and literary roles, and the engaging contributions, of Victorian women writers.

This book was first published in 1999. This collection of essays by leading scholars from Britain, the USA and Canada opens up the limited landscape of Victorian novels by focusing attention on some of the women writers popular in their own time but forgotten or neglected by literary history. Spanning the entire Victorian period, this study investigates particularly the role and treatment of 'the woman question' in the second half of the century. There are discussions of marriage, matriarchy and divorce, satire, suffragette writing, writing for children, and links between literature and art. Moving from Margaret Oliphant and Charlotte Mary Yonge to Mary Ward, Marie Corelli, 'Ouida' and E. Nesbit, this book illuminates the complex cultural and literary roles, and the engaging contributions, of Victorian women writers.

When Scenes of Clerical Life appeared anonymously in 1853 the Saturday Review pictured its author, George Eliot, as a bearded Cambridge clergyman and the revered father of several children. When Anthony Trollope published Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel anonymously in 1867, the London Review argued that the internal evidence required the author to be female.

Gender played a pivotal role in the reception of Victorian novels and was not only an analytical category used by Victorian reviewers to conceptualize, interpret, and evaluate novels, but in some cases was the primary category. This book analyzes over 100 nineteenth-century reviews of several prominent novels, both canonical and non-canonical, chosen for the various ways in which they conformed with and deviated from conventional gender stereotypes. Among these titles are Charles Reade's It Is Never Too Late to Mend, Emily Bront's Wuthering Heights, Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers and Charlotte Yonge's The Heir of Redclyffe.

This study goes beyond the intuitive notion that a double standard existed in the Victorian era which undervalues the work of women writers. Male writers, such as Trollope, were in fact also vulnerable to the masculine/feminine hierarchies of Victorian literary criticism. Some women writers, on the other hand, actually benefitted from gendered evaluations. Charlotte Yonge, for instance, conformed so closely to the ideal and idealized view of feminine writing that she is chivalrously exempted from more critical examinations of intellectual content. Having unearthed often ignored or neglected sources, Thompson examines the ways in which Victorian constructions of literary reputations were filtered through preconceptions about gender and writing.

Victor Hugo once said "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." For 55 years, it had not even dawned on me that I was a writer. My first clue should have been when I realized that there absolutely wasn't anything about which I didn't have an opinion. For five years I published a weekly newsletter for my church. No one else seemed to want to do it, and it was something that I loved doing. The fourteen years that I worked as an Insurance Agent should also have given me a nudge. I often gave group presentations that included stories about so many of my life experiences. Many clients encouraged me to write them down and share them with others. But it took a life-changing crisis that made me take a look within and find why God had placed me here. I have written a collection of insights that I gained during the first half of my life. Each chapter begins with a joke, a thought or a scripture that I believe God laid on my heart. The body of each chapter consists of a relating experience, insight or lesson that I gained. And each chapter is completed with a prayer. I have noticed how people are enjoying inspirational books that are also a "Quick" read such as mine. I submitted Chapter Five to the Indianapolis Star and it was published in the Faith and Values section of that newspaper. I think that one sign that a book could be good is when the reader wants more. Each person who has read these chapters did exactly that and asked if they can pass on to others what they have enjoyed or gained from my book. I would like to thank you in advance for taking the time to read some of what I believe God has shown me in my life. Come Share The Cookies. Lord, bless this reader, Amen.