Query From Anne Ruggles Gere argere@umich.edu 01 Dec 1997
As part of a study of female bastardy generally, my question centers on female bastardy in literature. It appears there has been little done on the topic, and it is difficult to "find" female bastards. Pearl in _Scarlet Letter_, Hedwig in _Wild Duck_, and June Kashpaw in _Love Medicine_ come to mind, but I'm sure there are many others. I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Responses:
Austen, Jane _Sense and Sensibility_ the Colonel's ward
Bronte, Charlotte _Jane Eyre_: the child the governess took care of
Bronte, Emily _Wuthering Heights_ Heathcliff
Brown, Herbert Ross _The Sentimental Novel in America_
Brown, Rita Mae _Rubyfruit Jungle_, _Six of One_, _Southern Discomfort_
Collins, Wilkie _Armadale_
DeFoe, Daniel _Moll Flanders_
Foster, Hannah _The Coquette_
Hugo, Victor _Les Miserables_
Nuxoll, Elizabeth M. "Illegitimacy, Family Status, and Property in the Early Republic: The Morris-Croxall Family of New Jersey," _New Jersey History_(Fall/Winter, 1995).
Reynolds, David _Beneath the American Renaissance_
Rhys, Jean _Wide Sargasso Sea_
Rossetti, Christina _The Iniquity of the Fathers Upon the Children_
Rowson, Susanna _Charlotte Temple_
Segal, Naomi _The Adulteress Child: Authorship and Desire in the 19th century Novel_(Polity Press, 1992)
Siegel, Adrienne _The Image of the American City in Popular Literature_
Trollope, _Doctor Thorne_ See Mary
Other Suggestions:
_Bastard Out of Carolina_
The heroine of Bleak House
Check magazines of the late 18th century, the work of Samuel Richardson