In Which I Mourn My Loss of Access to an Academic Library

This summer I was going to READ ALL THE BOOKS. As I promised/threatened a few months ago, I was going to write a series of posts on all the gloriously nerdy gems I found in my university library. I made a list and everything, and I kept telling myself that if I committed to it, I could go through at least 50% of it before September came and these books became unavailable to me.

Well, September is here, and like many of my other summer plans, none of this ever really happened. I didn’t count on how exhausted my dissertation would leave me – for a while there I couldn’t even read novels, let alone demanding non-fiction. But as you can imagine, I’m now heartbroken that I can no longer borrow books from an academic library (library memberships are available for alumni, but they don’t include borrowing rights – and there’s no way these would get read if I couldn’t bring them home). It’s especially sad because many of these books are hard to find in public libraries and/or prohibitively expensive. Though I understand the practical reasons that make this difficult, I would love to live in a world where academic libraries were open to anyone interested.

Perhaps one day my circumstances will change and I’ll have access to them again, but in the meantime, I thought I’d post my list to a) keep these books on my radar, b) so you could share my pain, and c) so some of you could perhaps read them on my behalf and then tell me if they’re as awesome as they sound.

Here it goes:

• English Feminism, 1780-1980 by Barbara Caine — from the author of Victorian Feminists, which I very much enjoyed, comes a history of feminism in England with an emphasis on “the relationship between feminist thought and actions”. Why didn’t I borrow it while I could?
  
  
• The Victorian Press and the Fairy Tale by Caroline Sumpter — a study of the literary fairy tale in the nineteenth-century and of the social history behind it, which won the Mythopoeic Award for general myth and fantasy studies this year. WANT.
  
  
• Silences by Tillie Olsen – the publisher describes it as “a study of the crucial relationship between circumstances - of sex, economic class, colour, the times and climate into which one is born - and creativity (…) Tillie Olsen focuses on the financial and cultural pressures which obstructed, or silenced, their work. She then turns to those who have lost most: women writers, their energies deflected into domesticity and motherhood; black American writers, only 11 of whom published more than two novels from 1850-1950”.
  
  
• Victorian Fiction: Writers, Publishers, Readers by John Sutherland — A history of the social and cultural context where the Victorian novel developed. What’s not to love?
  
  
• Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature by Elizabeth Hardwick — a critical analysis of several women writers, including Virginia Woolf, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Wordsworth, and Sylvia Plath.
  
  
• Charlotte Mew and Her Friends by Penelope Fitzgerald — Charlotte Mew’s poetry has been recommended to me several times, and I know I should read it before I embark on a biography. However, the library had lost its copy of The Farmer’s Bride but had this biography instead, and I was very tempted by it. The fact that it’s written by an accomplished novelist only makes it sound more appealing.
  
  
• Victorian Suicides: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories by Barbara Gates —This has been on my wishlist ever since I read Sarah Waters’ Affinity. The first chapter is available at Victorian Web and it makes the whole thing sound great.
  
  
• Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle by Elaine Showalter — With a title like this, do I need to add anything? Also, it’s Elaine Showalter, whose writing I usually love.
  
  
• The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980 by Elaine Showalter – see above.
  
  
• A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit by Julia Briggs — E. Nesbit sounds like a fascinating woman. The fact that she inspired Olive Wellwood from The Children’s Book only adds to the appeal of this biography.
  
  
• Intellectual Impostures by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont — a companion to Fashionable Nonsense, which, now that I think of it, I also haven’t read. On the bright side, I do own Edward Slingerland’s What Science Offers the Humanities, so I could go read that instead.
  
  
• Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel by Lucinda Hawksley — if you’ve been reading this blog for a while you probably know all about my interest in the Pre-Raphaelites. The fact that I’ve yet to pick up this book is quite a gap in my reading.
  
  
• Half the Human Experience by Janet Hyde — reading this bulky psychology textbook for fun sounds a bit daunting, but I think it would be worth the time investment. Hyde is a famous critic of gender essentialism, plus I’ve read some of her journal articles in the past and her writing is extremely accessible. Publisher’s description: “Hyde examines the balance of cultural and biological similarities (and differences) between the genders, noting how these characteristics may affect issues of equality, and also how men and women behave towards one another. By putting into context the proliferation of research in the field and clearly explaining the relationship between gender and emotion, the author helps demystify the scientific process and study of feminist psychology”.
  
  
• Josephine Butler by Jane Jordan — Butler was a Victorian feminist and activist who battled the Contagious Diseases Act at a time when ladies were not supposed to either speak in public or acknowledge the existence of prostitution. I first read about her in Victorian Feminists, and I would love to learn more.
  
  
• An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis — Laura Miller is to blame for this one – she wrote about it in The Magician’s Book and made it sound wonderful. Fortunately for me, this is far more affordable and easier to find that the rest of this list.
  
  
• To Herland and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman by Ann J. Lane — I actually had this biography out of the library at around the time I read Herland — Claire Tomalin’s biography really enhanced my understanding and appreciation of Mary Wollstonecraft, and I was hoping for the same here. But the timing wasn’t right and it just didn’t get read. One day!
  

If you’ve read any of these, I would love to hear what you thought!