OLIPHANT:

The Collected Writings of Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897), Parts 1 to 4

Jewsbury: The Collected Writings of Geraldine Jewsbury (1812-1880)

Jewsbury was a leading figure in the Victorian literary world, as a reviewer, a publisher's reader and as a literary hostess.  She is remembered for her great friendship with Jane Carlyle, but her own writings deserve attention and can now be read and enjoyed again.

Born in Measham in Derbyshire in 1812, she was the fourth of six children.  Because business in Derbyshire was poor, the family moved to Manchester in 1818, where their father was employed as a merchant and an insurance agent.Their mother died following the birth of the sixth child.  When her elder sister, Maria, married in 1832, Geraldine, just 20, was forced to take over the running of the entire household.  Tragically, the family heard that Maria had died in India just one year later.  After a number of yeras her father became ill, and  Geraldine nursed him through his final illness.  He died in 1840.  The household broke up and Geraldine went with her brother Frank, acting as his housekeeper until his marriage in 1853.

The house became a social and intellectual centre in Manchester.  Her friends included the Kingsleys, the Rosettis, Lady Morgan, Lady Llanover, Helena Faucit, Viscountess Combermere, Ruskin, Huxley, Froude and Bright.

In 1841 Geraldine Jewsbury met the Carlyles.  Thomas Carlyle pronounced her "one of the most interesting young women I have seen for years, delicate sense & courage looking out of her small sylph-like figure."   But it was her instant rapport with Jane Carlyle that was of lasting significance.  The two became firm friends, regular correspondents, and conspirators against the forces of society.

This project includes all of Jewsbury's book-length works including Zoe: the history of two lives (1845) - one of the earliest Victorian novels to explore religious scepticism; The half-sisters(1848), arguably her finest work, exploring existential questions and contrasting the focussed and fulfilled life of an actress with the hum-drum existence of a manufacturer's wife; Marian Withers (1851) - which was heavily influenced by Saint-Simonian ideas; Constance Herbert (1855); The sorrows of gentility (1856);  as well as A selection from the letters of Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle (1892).

6 reels of 35mm silver-halide positive microfilm.

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