Metafiction and Metahistory in Contemporary Women's Writing

SHERRY BOOTH Senior Lecturer in English, Santa Clara University, California, USACHRISTINE COLÓN Assistant Professor of English, Wheaton College, Illinois, USASARAH FALCUS Lecturer in English, Liverpool John Moores University, UKSARAH GAMBLE Senior Lecturer in Gender in English Studies, University of Wales Swansea, UKKATHARINE HODGKIN Principal Lecturer in the School of Social Science, Media and Cultural Studies, University of East London, UKJEANNETTE KING Senior Lecturer in English, Aberdeen University, UKGEORGES LETISSIER Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Nantes University, FranceRACHEL MORLEY Doctoral Candidate in Creative Writing, Macquarie University, AustraliaJULIA TOFANTSUK Doctoral Candidate, Tallinn University, EstoniaMICHAEL SINOWITZ Associate Professor of English, DePauw University, Indiana, USAJOHANNA M. SMITH Associate Professor of English, University of Texas-Arlington, USAMARIA VARA Doctoral Candidate, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, GreeceDIANA WALLACE Principal Lecturer in English, University of Glamorgan, UK

• Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: Metafiction and Metahistory in Contemporary Women's Writing; A.Heilmann & M.Llewellyn PART ONE: TOWARDS A RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF HISTORY AND IDENTITY The Witch, The Puritan and the Prophet: Historical Novels and Seventeenth-Century History; Katharine Hodgkin History as Story in Angela Carter's American Ghosts and Old World Wonders ; Sarah Gamble Falling off the Edge of the World: History and Gender in Daphne Marlatt's Ana Historic ; Sherry Booth Time, Space and ( Her )Story in the Fiction of Eva Figes; Julia Tofantsuk From Demidenko to Darville: Behind the Scenes of a Literary Carnival; Rachel Morley PART TWO: HISTORIOGRAPHIC RE-VISIONINGS Historicizing Witchcraft Throughout the Ages: Joanna Baillie and Caryl Churchill; Christine A.Colón The Benefits of Watching the Circus Animals Desert: Myth, Yeats, and Patriarchy in Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus ; Michael Sinowitz Passion and Possession as Alternatives to 'Cosmic Masculinity' in 'Herstorical' Romances; Georges Letissier Michèle Roberts: Histories and Herstories in In the Red Kitchen , Fair Exchange and The Looking Glass ; Sarah Falcus PART THREE: GENERIC EXPERIMENTATIONS WITH GENDER AND GENRE Rewriting The Rover ; Johanna M.Smith The Convent Novel and the Uses of History; Diana Wallace The Revenge of a Stereotype: Re-Writing the History of the Gothic Heroine in Alice Thompson's Justine ; Maria Vara The Resisting Writer: Revisiting the Canon, Rewriting History in Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer ; Jeanette King Breaking the Mould? Sarah Waters and the Politics of Genre; Mark Llewellyn Index

'This important collection of essays catches a current literary (and literary critical) moment, engaging directly with the steady and seemingly continuing interest in the past shown by contemporary women writers of fiction. In particular, it offers the contemporary literary critic a series of authoritative guides on how to straddle historical periods whilst remaining firmly rooted in the twenty-first century - this is a much needed volume.' - Lucie Armitt, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Salford, UK 'The chapters are wide-ranging in their thematic and historical scope, traversing various centuries, genres, and critical frameworks... this volume makes a timely contribution to a current and dynamic field of enquiry.' - Rebecca Munford, Contemporary Women's Writing