The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland by Eliza Lynn Linton

Why is this intriguing? The strange gender ambiguity of the newspaper death notice, where Eliza Lynn Linton, by chance error, becomes both husband and wife, reminds us of her gender ambiguity as portrayed by her and perceived by others during her lifetime. Lynn Linton, though she was nothing of the kind. Lynn Linton, there crept in a most egregious mistake which anyone might mark as a palpable clerical error – or else a freak of the “typo.” I made it appear the deceased authoress was the wife of E. The writer in the Lakes Herald realised this mistake, and a week later, on 29 July, 1898, they explained, “In the hurriedly scribbled note of last week upon the late Mrs. Linton, and this confusion of intitals makes it look as though Eliza Lynn was her own wife. Linton, the famous wood engraver, was just then becoming popular as a novelist…” In fact, Eliza Lynn Linton became the wife of Mr William James Linton, W.J. Lynn Linton who was at that period the wife of Mr. However due to error, typographical, or otherwise, what the paper actually printed on 22 July, 1898, was, “Mrs. The Lakes Herald newspaper, which was published in Ambleside, Westmorland, noted Eliza Lynn Linton’s death, as would be expected for a famous locally born author. Eliza Lynn Linton herself had a long writing career, and published books of LGBTQ interest today.

Her father, Reverend James Lynn, was vicar of Crosthwaite, and her mother, Charlotte Alicia Goodenough, was a daughter of a former bishop of Carlisle. I have written in previous posts about Eliza Lynn Linton, the author who was born in 1822 in Crosthwaite Vicarage, near Keswick, Cumberland. The Girl of the Period Miscellany 1: 5–11.In this post, I discuss a curious mistake in a report in the Lakes Herald Newspaper, which is ironically relevant to Eliza Lynn Linton’s gender and sexual ambivalence. What is the girl of the period for? 1869. Eve’s renegades: Victorian anti-feminist women novelists. Fallenness in Victorian women’s writing: Marry, stitch, die, or do worse. The autobiography of Christopher Kirkland. Lynn Linton: Her life, letters, and opinions. London: Robert Hardwicke.įraser, Hilary, Judith Johnston, and Stephanie Green. A defense of the girl of the period by one of the sisterhood. Victorian Literature and Culture 29 (2): 267–283.Ĭraik, Dinah Mulock. Much more than an antifeminist: Eliza Lynn Linton and the rise of Victorian popular journalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.īroomfield, Andrea. The awkward age in women’s popular fiction, 1850–1900. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.īilston, Sarah. Woman against women in Victorian England: A life of Eliza Lynn Linton.

The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland by Eliza Lynn Linton