Dream and Literary Creation in Women’s Writings in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

“This superb collection of interdisciplinary work on dreams in 18th and 19th century literature is essential reading for students of the period. As a student and teacher of works in the long nineteenth century, I encountered fresh approaches to works I thought I knew well, such as Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre, and I especially appreciate that the collection puts the dreams of 18th and 19th century dreaming into a longer framework that includes scientific approaches to dreams as well as other literary works that include Pilgrim’s Progress and more recent writers: Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Sayers, Irish Murdoch, and Margaret Drabble.” — Carol A. Senf, Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, US

“Going beyond an exclusive focus on the gothic, this collection of essays teases out the reader’s ‘hermeneutic task’ in famous and lesser-known literary texts, providing thought-provoking views of narrative strategies constructed around dreams, be they ‘real’ or fictional, from a period not yet under the spell of Freud and Jung.”—Professor Anne Bandry-Scubbi, University of Strasbourg, France.

“Dream in women’s writings ? A brilliant idea. This original gendered investigation of literary creativity is based on a wide corpus, from Frances Burney and Mary Shelley to Emily Brontë. The book also includes a fine postscript by Margaret Ann Doody” — Jean Viviès, Professor of British literature, Aix-Marseille University, France