Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label Women fairy tale writers

Pseudonyms and Apologia

While reviewers differentiated between the worth of the books based on gender expectations, women writers also approached their audiences differently to men modifying their approach to meet critical reception. These women suggest that they write to amuse and entertain, and as a genteel leisure time pursuit. Apologia in the Preface or Note to the Reader written, perhaps to pre-empt some of the criticism they believed may be levelled at them. Gumsucker (Sarah Roland) begins Rosalie’s Reward or The Fairy Treasure by saying demurely: Should this story be favourable (sic) received by the little folks for whom it is written, it is the Author’s intention to publish a series of Tales, so that the merry children of the fair South may revel in dreams of their own Fairy Lore. Wilcken (1891) also revealed that it was only that under pressure from friends that she printed her stories and that ‘it seemed ungracious to refuse such a request’. (Preface) Another way of avoiding criticism w