Nobody's Angels

Description:

Langland argues that the middle-class wife had a more complex and important function than has previously been recognized: she mastered skills that enabled her to support a rigid class system while unknowingly setting the stage for a feminist revolution.

Review Quotes:

Langland's account is deeply provocative, and it is elaborated with great intellectual integrity.... Her readings are astute, and her dexterity at balancing strong claims about gender and class against her theoretical fidelity to the demands of writing a discontinuous, non-traditional account of cultural politics is impressive and instructive. Nobody's Angels is, without doubt, essential reading for students of nineteenth-century culture, and it will significantly alter the ways we reconcile the ideologies of public and private spheres.