Description: Female quixotes, the fangirls of their time, proliferated in the eighteenth century. Quixotic Authority explores the female quixote trope within novels and in the professional lives of British women writers from Charlotte Lennox and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Maria Edgeworth, Sarah Green, and Jane Austen to show how deeply absorbed reading was inextricable from and essential to women's writing and cultural commentary at this time.
Review Quotes: "In this beautifully and expansively written book, Wyett details how quixotism freed major players in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century novel industry who faced stultifying gender and racial expectations. In her hands, quixotism is no longer about mindless engagement in overly enthusiastic fan culture, but it is a powerful tool to reveal the constructedness of reality and enact radical empathy not only centuries ago, but today. From Janeite Fangirls to Bridgerton, you will never dismiss a Quixote again."--Susan Carlile "author of Charlotte Lennox: An Independent Mind (2018)" (6/6/2025 12:00:00 AM)