Men of Letters, Writing Lives

Men of Letters, Writing Lives takes an in-depth look at the developments within Victorian autobiography and biography, and asks what we can learn about the conditions and limits of male literary authority. The book focuses on two case studies from the period 1880-1903: the theories and achievements of Sir Leslie Stephen and the debate surrounding James Anthony Groude's account of the marriage of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. Providing a feminist analysis of the effects of this literary production on culture, Trev Broughton argues that the modernization of life writing was due to the commercialization of the life and letters industry and the proliferation of professions with a vested interest in the written life.