Literature Network » Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The politics of ambivalence: romance, history, and gender in Mary W. Shelley's Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.

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From: CLIO
Date: 20070922
Author:Garrett, Erin L. Webster

I am doomed to a divided existence and I submit. (1)

Published in 1830, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's second and last historical romance, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, elicited reviews that questioned not only her legitimacy as a historical romancer, but also the damaging effects her "feminine" imaginative excesses could have on both the historical record and the literary establishment. Reviewers were particularly piqued by Shelley's failure to "blend together with sufficient skill what is fictitious and what is true." (2) To the effect that this was a consequence of the ...

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