Silly Novels by Lady Novelists cover art

Silly Novels by Lady Novelists

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free + £10 Audible voucher

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

Silly Novels by Lady Novelists

By: George Eliot
Narrated by: Sarah Bacaller
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £7.20

Buy Now for £7.20

In this essay, originally published anonymously in The Westminster Review (1856), George Eliot examines the state of women’s fiction in her time. She lamentingly argues that absurd and banal novels, written by well-to-do women of her time, do great disservice for the overall appreciation of women’s intellectual capacities within society.

Eliot divides ‘silly novels by lady novelists’ into several distinct categories: the mind-and-millinery species, the oracular type and the white-neck-cloth variety. She writes with characteristic sharp wit and insightful intellect in this scathing (but not unfeeling) feminist critique of ‘Silly Novels by Lady Novelists’.

Public Domain (P)2023 Voices of Today Essays Nonfiction
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
All stars
Most relevant
Why would anyone choose someone with a silly voice to read a book mocking silly novels by lady novelists? PLEASE let's hear this essay read by Juliet Stevenson!

Wonderful essay let down by the performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.