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Diana din Crossways by George Meredith
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Diana din Crossways (original 1885; edition 1975)

by George Meredith

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283392,654 (3.19)33
A critical edition of a work by one of the premier writers of the nineteenth century. Diana of the Crossways is one of George Meredith's most popular and critically acclaimed novels. When the book was first published in 1885, George Meredith was well known as an advocate for the rights of women. He encouraged their legal emancipation and women's suffrage. His writings reveal his sense of the injustice suffered by women because of constraints on their natural abillties. Diana of the Crossways illustrates a Victorian woman in the process of change as the attempts independence. The problems she faces offer a distinct departure from the treatment of conventional heroines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Meredith understood and wrote so well about the conflicts women faced that Diana of the Crossways depicts the struggles that led to a new ferninism. Nikki Lee Manos's introduction draws upon a wide range of historical and critical texts, from John Stuart Mill's feminist tract of 1869 to Mary Poovey's contemporary theorles about gender in Victorian fiction. Diana of the Crossways is a central text for the study of nineteenth-century representation of women and the Victorian wo… (more)
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Title:Diana din Crossways
Authors:George Meredith
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Diana of the Crossways by George Meredith (1885)

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A recent review: Even though the book's more than a century old, this's some of the most beautiful, sophisticated and original prose that one can encounter. Content doesn't matter when it is art for art's sake. ( )
  wiredfromback | Jul 4, 2012 |
Diana of the Crossways is a novel that was closely modeled on the life of Caroline Norton, a Victorian feminist who famously separated from her husband, later having an affairs with a rising politician.

George Meredith was a close friend of Norton’s and so this novel portrays Caroline (renamed Diana in this book) in an extremely sympathetic like—sometimes too sympathetically. To protect her reputation, I suspect Meredith took a lot of the scandal out of Diana’s story—really, to the detriment of the book, since Caroline Norton had an extremely fascinating life. As a result, Meredith manages to make Diana’s story uninteresting, to the point where I just didn’t care much about the story or characters. It’s too bad, because George Meredith has a lot of material to work from.

Instead, he spends a lot of time in this book dissecting his main character and the motives for her decisions. Meredith also extracts a lot from the writing of “Diana,” which got a bit tedious after a while; and the book is overtly feminist in a lot of places (for example, at one point Meredith—not Meredith writing as Diana—predicts that one day women will be encouraged to have professions, which is no big deal nowadays but back then must have seemed preposterous). However, the novel highlights the position that women had in Victorian society, which is sometimes interesting. On the other hand, George Meredith’s writing style is very, very hard to read, which is probably why this novel, and why this kind of novel, has become deeply unfashionable. ( )
2 vote Kasthu | Sep 14, 2010 |
This is a Victorian work of fiction, based on the life of notorious socialite Caroline Norton, who married a bad man, wrote pro-feminist literature, and got involved with several political figures. As a result, reading DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS is a curious combination of knowing it’s fiction that’s heavily based on real events, and trying to get lost in the emotional sensations that Meredith tries for with his all-over-the-place writing. Unfortunately, this book is REALLY HARD to read: Meredith’s sensory writing is less narrative and more modernist abstract experiment. Plus, it doesn’t help that the entirety of the plot was summed up in my first line, and is really nothing special, nor does Meredith succeed in playing up what could be an intriguing story. ( )
1 vote stephxsu | Apr 22, 2010 |
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» Add other authors (6 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
George Meredithprimary authorall editionscalculated
Sage, LornaIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Diana of the Crossways, first published in 1885, was the novel that gave George Meredith (fifty-six years old, respected but still somehow marginal) the wide readership and the money he'd almost given up hoping for. (Introduction)
Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her wit: "an unusual combination," in the deliberate syllables of one of the writers, whi is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speaking of her.
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A critical edition of a work by one of the premier writers of the nineteenth century. Diana of the Crossways is one of George Meredith's most popular and critically acclaimed novels. When the book was first published in 1885, George Meredith was well known as an advocate for the rights of women. He encouraged their legal emancipation and women's suffrage. His writings reveal his sense of the injustice suffered by women because of constraints on their natural abillties. Diana of the Crossways illustrates a Victorian woman in the process of change as the attempts independence. The problems she faces offer a distinct departure from the treatment of conventional heroines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Meredith understood and wrote so well about the conflicts women faced that Diana of the Crossways depicts the struggles that led to a new ferninism. Nikki Lee Manos's introduction draws upon a wide range of historical and critical texts, from John Stuart Mill's feminist tract of 1869 to Mary Poovey's contemporary theorles about gender in Victorian fiction. Diana of the Crossways is a central text for the study of nineteenth-century representation of women and the Victorian wo

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In the fashionable political and literary world of mid-Victorian England, Diana Merion takes London by storm. A woman of exceptional spirit, beautiful, witty, she is without means and so must marry. Diana accepts the first man to present himself and embarks on a marriage which stifles her genius. For Diana was born to shine. She cannot love a man on less than equal terms and her dramatic personality demands personal freedom. In a world hostile to any break with conventions, Diana's escape from her husband, her ambitious career and her love for the rising young politician Dacier, brings down upon her the full fury of her peers... Through Diana, 'a positive heroine with brains, with real blood', Meredith depicts with brilliant insight the dilemmas and struggles which led to the birth of the New Woman.
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