Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Millenium Hall (1762)by Sarah Scott, Lady Barbara Montagu
18th Century (24) Books Read in 2015 (2,407) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.
quite boring but i realize it's interesting to read something written in 1762. ( ) Published in 1762, Millennium Hall describes a utopian society of women living much more autonomously than was the norm at that time. The women of Millennium Hall are all unmarried, and the circumstances of their arrival often were related to the death of a father or other source of financial support. The novel is loosely drawn from events in author Sarah Scott's life. Scott's father failed to provide her with financial support and, after separating from her husband (an extremely rare event in those days), she lived with a close female friend as part of a community of intellectuals seeking social reform. The novel is made up of a series of narratives telling the stories of various women at Millennium Hall. It is written in a didactic style, intended to provide "moral instruction" to the reader -- and specifically, male readers. While some of the women's stories were interesting, the preachy tone and flowery language wore on me after a while. I read this as part of a project in the Virago Modern Classics group, to read VMCs in original order of publication. The group read helped me appreciate this book for its place in the history of women's writing, but I can't say I enjoyed it. no reviews | add a review
In 1750 at the age of twenty-seven Sarah Scott published her first novel, a conventional romance. A year later she left her husband after only a few months of marriage and devoted herself thereafter to writing and to promoting such causes as the creation of secular and separatist female communities. This revolutionary concept was given flesh in Millenium Hall, first published in 1762 and generally thought to be the finest of her six novels. The text may be seen as the manifesto of the 'bluestocking' movement--the protean feminism that arose under eighteenth-century gentry capitalism (originating in 1750, largely under the impetus of Scott's sister Elizabeth Montagu), and that rejected a world which early feminists saw symbolized in the black silk stockings demanded by formal society. It is a comment on Western society as well as on the strengths of Scott's novel that the message of Millenium Hall continues to resonate strongly more than two centuries later. No library descriptions found.
|
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.6Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Later 18th century 1745-1800LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |