Women in print
Title page and frontispiece of: The old English baronThe 18th century was an era dominated by patriarchal ideology, where the boundaries between men and women were sharply drawn. The rigid patriarchy was established by an embedded cultural system or ideology that viewed women as inferior, so the 18th century were periods in time that bound each gender within its own sphere. Whilst men dominated the public and political sphere, women were confined to the domestic sphere and trapped under rigid stereotypes that followed them into the realm of fantasy.
The printing press was first brought to England by William Caxton in 1476. Prior to the printing press, the majority of England was illiterate or semi-literate and had limited access to education or the written word, especially for those not born into nobility. Even in wealthy families, women were mostly taught household upkeep and domestic management. However, the emergence and wider dissemination of printed books and material triggered a rise in literacy rates which ultimately provided women with an opportunity to write and publish their own books.
Clara Reeve’s 1777 novel The old English baron is a book that I consulted in the Foyle Special Collections Library. The novel was a response to Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto and was popular amongst readers of the Gothic genre. Its success shows that 18th century women could produce literature that was similarly popular and influential. However, like many other successful female authors of the period, Reeve was born into a well-to-do family and her father, Reverend William Reeve, was a firm believer in education who encouraged Reeve’s literary pursuits.
In this exhibition
- Introduction
- Women and 18th century print
- Women in print
- Class structures and readership
- Working-class women
- Female representations in chapbooks
- Further contexts
- Select bibliography