Constance Maynard's Passions

&lquo;Here - finally - is a richly detailed biography of Constance Maynard that does full justice to the complexity and significance of her life and work. In clustering faith, desire, and sexual identity Pauline Phipps sheds new light on one woman's struggle to reconcile human love and divine love. Particularly striking for me in this thoughtful discussion of Maynard's intense relationships with women is Phipps's innovative historiographical methodology. In learning more about this compelling life story we also learn more about how to write the history of sexuality.&rquo; -- Laura Doan, Professor of Cultural History and Sexuality Studies, University of Manchester, and author of Disturbing Practices: History, Sexuality and Women's Experience of Modern War "At its core, Constance Maynard's Passions is the story of a fascinating woman who was both a professional pioneer and tormented soul. There is much to learn from her story about the emotional trials of this early generation of educational pioneers." -- Jacqueline R. deVries, Professor of History, Augsburg College

Using Maynard’s extensive personal papers, especially her diaries and autobiography, Constance Maynard’s Passions is the fascinating account of a life which confounds the usual categories of faith, gender, and sexuality.

Successful but self-tormented, English educational pioneer Constance Maynard (1849–1935) was a deeply religious evangelical Christian whose personal atonement theology demanded that one resist carnal feelings to achieve personal salvation. As the founder of Westfield College at the University of London, Maynard championed women’s access to a university education. As the college’s first principal, she also engaged in a string of passionate relationships with college women in which she imagined love as God’s gift as well as a test of her faith.

Using Maynard’s extensive personal papers, especially her diaries and autobiography, Pauline A. Phipps examines how the language of her faith offered Maynard the means with which to carve out an independent career and to forge a distinct same-sex sexual self-consciousness in an era when middle-class women were expected to be subservient to men and confined to the home. Constance Maynard’s Passions is the fascinating account of a life which confounds the usual categories of faith, gender, and sexuality.