Eliza Lynn Linton

Eliza Lynn Linton (10 February 1822 – 14 July 1898) was the first female salaried journalist in Britain and the author of over 20 novels. Despite her path-breaking role as an independent woman, many of her essays took a strong anti-feminist slant.

Life

Eliza Lynn Linton was born in Keswick, Cumbria, England, the youngest of the twelve children of the Rev. James Lynn, vicar of Crosthwaite, and his wife Charlotte, who was the daughter of a bishop of Carlisle. The death of her mother when Eliza was five months old meant a chaotic upbringing, in which she was largely self-educated, but in 1845 she left home to earn her living as a writer in London.

After moving to Paris, she married W. J. Linton in 1858, an eminent wood-engraver, who was also a poet of note, a writer on his craft, and a Chartist agitator. She moved into his ramshackle house, Brantwood, in the Lake District, with his seven children from an earlier marriage, and wrote there a novel set locally: ''Lizzie Lorton of Greyrigg''. The couple also lived at Gang Moor on the edge of Hampstead Heath for several years. In 1867 they separated amicably, her husband going to America and Eliza going back to life as a London writer.

Linton returned briefly to her childhood home in Cumbria in 1889, to feel "half in a dream here. It is Keswick and yet not Keswick, as I am Eliza Lynn and yet not Eliza Lynn."G. Lindop, ''A Literary Guide to the Lake District'' (1993) p. 180. She usually lived in London until about three years before her death, when she retired to Brougham House, Malvern. She died at Queen Anne's Mansions, London, on 14 July 1898. Her ashes were scattered in Crosthwaite churchyard.

Career

Linton arrived in London in 1845 as a protégée of the novelist William Harrison Ainsworth and the poet Walter Savage Landor. At one time she was promoted by Theodosia Monson, who was a champion of women's rights. In 1846 she produced her first novel, ''Azeth, the Egyptian'', which was followed by ''Amymone'' (1848) and ''Realities'' (1851). Neither had great success. Meanwhile she began working as a journalist and became acquainted with George Eliot. Linton joined the staff of the ''Morning Chronicle'' in 1849, a position said to have made her the first woman to be paid a salary as a journalist. She left the paper in 1851 over a disagreement.

During her time in Paris, Linton was a correspondent for ''The Leader'', which her husband had helped found. She was a regular contributor to Charles Dickens's ''Household Words'' and to ''St James's Gazette'', the '' Daily News, Ainsworth's Magazine, The Cornhill Magazine'' and other leading newspapers. The prolific Linton became one of the best-known women periodical contributors of her time. Her 1864 guide to ''The Lake Country'' still bears reading for tart comments on the tourist rituals of the Victorians.

IN 1881 and 1883 she travelled to Palermo, where she met Tina Whitaker and encouraged her to write.

After separating from her husband, Linton returned to writing novels, in which she finally attained wide popularity. Her most successful works were '' The True History of Joshua Davidson'' (1872), '' Patricia Kemball'' (1874), and ''The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland'' (1885), the latter being in fact a thinly disguised autobiography. In 1896, she became one of the first women to be elected to the Society of Authors and was the first woman to serve on the society's committee.

Views

Mrs Linton was a severe critic of early feminism. Her prominent essay on the subject, "The Girl of the Period," appeared in the '' Saturday Review'' in 1868 as a vehement attack. In 1891, she wrote "Wild Women as Politicians", explaining her view that politics were naturally the sphere of men, as was fame of any sort. "Amongst our most renowned women," she wrote, "are some who say with their whole heart, 'I would rather have been the wife of a great man, or the mother of a hero, than what I am, famous in my own person." Mrs Linton exemplifies how the fight against votes for women was not organised only by men (see Anti-suffragism).

Her obituary in ''The Times'' noted her "animosity towards all, or rather, some of those facets which may be conveniently called the 'New Woman'," but added that "it would perhaps be difficult to reduce Mrs. Lynn Linton's views on what was and what was not desirable for her own sex to a logical and connected form." Revisionist critics have noted an unconscious sympathy for the dashing "modern women" in her fiction, and to her support for the right of married women to own property and so gain greater independence. (See Married Women's Property Act 1870 and Married Women's Property Act 1882.)

Linton's contribution to a symposium on English fiction in 1890 took a less aggressive stance towards Grundyism than her fellow-contributor Thomas Hardy.

Works

*''Azeth, The Egyptian'', T.C. Newby, 1847
''Amymone: A Romance in the Days of Pericles''Vol. 2Vol. 3
Richard Bentley, 1848
*''Realities: A Tale'', Saunders and Otley, 1851
''Witch Stories''
Chapman & Hall, 1861
''The Lake Country''
Smith, Elder and Company, 1864
''Grasp Your Nettle''Vol. 2Vol. 3
Smith, Elder & Co., 1865
''Lizzie Lorton of Greyrigg: A Novel''
Harper & Brothers, 1866
''Sowing the Wind''Vol. 2Vol. 3
Tinsley Brothers 1867
''"Clementina Kinniside,"''
The Galaxy 5, January/July 1868
''The True History of Joshua Davidson, Christian and Communist''
J. B. Lippincott, 1873 st publication, Strahan & Company, 1872br>''Patricia Kemball''
J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1875
*''The Mad Willoughbys and other Tales'', 1875
''The Atonement of Leam Dundas''
J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1876
''From Dreams to Waking''
Harper & Bros, 1877
*''The World Well Lost''
Vol. 2
Chatto & Windus, 1877
''Under which Lord?''Vol. 2Vol. 3
Chatto & Windus, 1879
''"At Night in a Hospital,"''
Belgravia, July 1879
*''The Rebel of the Family''
Vol. 2
Chatto & Windus, 1880
''With a Silken Thread and other Stories''
Chatto & Windus, 1880
''My Love!''
Chatto & Windus, 1881
*''Ione'', Chatto and Windus, 1883
''The Girl of the Period and Other Social Essays''Vol. 2
Richard Bentley & Son, 1883
''Ourselves: Essays on Women''
Chatto & Windus, 1884
''The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland''Vol. 2Vol. 3
R. Bentley, 1885
*''Stabbed in the Dark'', F. V. White & Co., 1885
''"A Protest and a Plea,"''
The Order of Creation: The Conflict Between Genesis and Geology, The Truth Seeker Company, 1885
*''Rift in the Lute'', Simpkin, 1885
*''Paston Carew, Millionaire and Miser: A Novel'', Bentley, 1886
''Through the Long Night''
Hurst & Blackett Limited, 1889
''About Ireland''
Methuen & Co., 1890
''An Octave of Friends, with other Silhouettes and Stories''
Ward & Downey, 1891
''About Ulster''
Methuen & Co., 1892
*''The One too Many'', F. Tennyson Neely, 1894
*''In Haste and at Leisure'', Merriam Co., 1895
''Dulcie Everton''Vol. 2
Chatto & Windus, 1896
Twixt Cup & Lip. Etc''
Digby, Long & Co., 1896
''My Literary Life''
Hodder and Stroughton, 1899
''The Second Youth of Theodora Desanges''
Hutchinson & Co., 1900
*''The Fate of Madame Cabanel'', n.d.
The Fate of Madame Cabanel
', The New York Times, 19 January 1873
*''The Witches of Scotland'', n.d.

Selected articles

"The Modern Revolt,"
''Macmillan's Magazine'', December 1870
''An Old English Home,''
''The Atlantic Monthly'', 32, July 1873
"Some Sicilian Customs,"
''The Eclectic Magazine'' 41, New Series, 1885
"A Protest and a Plea,"
''The Gentleman's Magazine'' 260, 1886
"The Future Supremacy of Women,"
''The National Review,'' Vol. VIII, 1886
* "The Higher Education of Women", ''Popular Science Monthly'' 30, December 1886
"Womanhood in Old Greece,"
''The Library Magazine'' 2, Third Series, November 1886/March 1887
"The Tyranny of Fashion,"
''The Forum'' 3, March 1887
“The Roman Matron,”
''The Library Magazine'' 4, Third Series, July/September 1887
“The Pains of Fear,”
''The Forum'' 5, May 1888
“Are Good Women Characterless?,”
''The Forum'' 6, February 1889
“Democracy in the Household,”
''The Forum'' 8, September 1889
*"Our Illusions," ''Fortnightly Review'' 49, pp. 596–7, 1891
*"The Revolt Against Matrimony," ''The Forum'' 10 (5), January 1891
"The Judicial Shock to Marriage,"
''Nineteenth Century'' 29, May 1891
"The Wild Women: as Politicians,"
''Nineteenth Century'', July 1891

''The Nineteenth Century'' 30, pp. 596–605, October 1891
"The Partisans of the Wild Women,"
''Nineteenth Century'' 31, pp. 455–464, April 1892
*"The New Woman," ''St. James's Budget'', July 1894
*"The Rex Nemorum," ''St. James's Budget'', August 1894
*"The Philistine's Coming Triumph," ''National Review'' 26, September 1895
*"Cranks and Crazes," ''The North American Review'', December 1895

In ''Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign'', Hurst & Blackett, Limited, 1897

See also

Notes

References

*Deirdre d'Albertis (1996), "Make-believers in Bayswater and Belgravia: Bronte, Linton, and the Victorian Flirt," ''Victorians Institute Journal'' 24
*Nancy Fix Anderson (1987), ''Woman Against Women in Victorian England: A Life of Eliza Lynn Linton''. Indiana University Press
*Nancy Fix Anderson (1989), "Eliza Lynn Linton, Dickens, and the Woman Question," ''Victorian Periodicals Review'' 22, No. 4, 134–141
*Andrea Lynn Broomfield (2001), "Much More Than an Antifeminist: Eliza Lynn Linton's Contributions to the Rise of Victorian Popular Journalism," ''Victorian Literature and Culture'' 29 (2), 267–283
*Andrea Lynn Broomfield (2004), "Eliza Lynn Linton, Sarah Grand and the Spectacle of the Victorian Woman Question: Catch Phrases, Buzz Words and Sound Bites," ''English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920'' 47 (3), 251–272
*Elizabeth Latta Brother (1999), "A Profession of Their Own: A Study of the Journalistic, Margaret Oliphant, Eliza Lynn Linton, and Emilia Dilke," ''Dissertation Abstracts International'' 60 (5)
*Judith Flanders (2004), ''Inside the Victorian Home: a Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England.'' New York: W. W. Norton
*Christopher Herbert (1983), "He Knew He Was Right, Mrs. Lynn Linton, and the Duplicities of Victorian Marriage," ''Texas Studies in Literature and Language'' 25 (3), 448–469
*George Somes Layard (1901)
''Mrs. Lynn Linton; Her Life, Letters, and Opinions''
London: Methuen & Co
*Frederick Sessions (1905)
"A Successful Novelist: Eliza Lynn Linton,"
in ''Literary Celebrities of the English Lake-District''. London: Eliot Stock
* Herbert Van Thal (1979), ''Eliza Lynn Linton: The Girl of the Period: A Biography''. London/Boston: Allen and Unwin
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External links

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Portraits at the National Portraits GalleryEliza Lynn Linton (1822–1898), by John Collier
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Linton, Eliza Lynn
1822 births
1898 deaths
19th-century English women writers
19th-century British writers
19th-century English writers
Anti-suffragists
English women novelists
Female critics of feminism
Victorian novelists
Victorian women writers
19th-century British journalists