Content area
Full text
Margaret Harkness has been a somewhat mysterious figure for scholars of late nineteenth-century England in part because of the multiple ways that she can be identified or labeled. None of these ways, one imagines, would have completely satisfied her. As a novelist, journalist, social explorer, global traveller, socialist, and radical activist, Harkness can give the impression of enigmatic restlessness or evasiveness, despite a personal and professional life that frequently placed her at the center of late-Victorian politics. Flore Janssen and Lisa C. Robertson have put together an impressive collection of essays on Harkness that only confirms this impression— not the impression of an inconsistent writer but of someone constantly experimenting and constantly challenging both herself and others’ expectations of her. The dozen essays taken together create a portrait of a woman whose “ambition and engagement often surpassed apparent opportunity,” as Janssen and Robertson claim in their introduction (4).
Perhaps because of her social and occupational slipperiness, Harkness has become increasingly identified as a key figure in late nineteenth- century literary studies (as well as political studies, periodical studies, feminist studies, and so on). Margaret Harkness: Writing Social Engagement, 1880–1921 will be a helpful and significant resource for scholars working on Harkness and her many interests. The volume not only fills gaps in our knowledge of Harkness and points towards further research, but it also attempts to redefine the critical categories that we use to define her and her historical context, even as Harkness herself seemed unenthused by these categories.
After Janssen and Robertson’s introduction, which nicely outlines a history of Harkness scholarship and her broadening reputation, the collection is divided into five parts. Terry Elkiss boldly begins the first section...