Autumn Stephens

Victorian upper-class Entertaining, that is. What a delightful little book! I admit to a passion for old etiquette books, and what Miss Stephens has done is to take bits and pieces from various unidentified 19th-century sources and created a guide to dinner parties, country house gatherings, and the like. While few of us today have the leisure to pay formal calls, or have footmen to receive callers' cards on a silver tray, much of the advice given is still quite appropriate, even if couched show more in language that makes us smile. Would we not all agree that an overnight guest "should have a comfortable room . . . with bed linen that is fresh and well aired"? Or that "[w]e have no right to offend people with our manners or conversation"? Such simple rules of courtesy and consideration never go out of style, though details of how to dress and the accepted hours for meals may change.

I am quite curious about one reference, however. "It is in utmost poor taste for a gentleman . . . to carry a little poodle dog (a man's glory is his strength and manliness, not in aping silly girls)." They did that? (Apparently, they did. A bit of searching reveals that the quotation is from a book called Modern Manners and Social Forms, published in 1889.)

Which leads me to my one criticism. It would have been appropriate (and proper) for Miss Stephens to have identified her sources. While the books she drew from are undoubtedly long out of copyright, courtesy (both to the writer and to the reader who may wish to know more) should be a sufficient reason to give that information. show less

If you say "Victorian women," I can probably guess exactly what you mean. We have a stereotype of Victorian women as proper, prudish women who take care of their husbands and children, whose focus is only on the home and the so-called womanly sphere. But this pop culture portrayal certainly doesn't include all women. In fact, the women of the era whom we have most likely heard of, with the possible exception of Queen Victoria herself (although even she apparently wasn't nearly as stiff and show more unhumorous as the popular picture would imply), are all women who most assuredly did not follow the strictures of the age. Autumn Stephens's Wild Women offers brief biographies of some of the women who fought against this straight-laced and rather uninteresting expectation and lived life on their own terms.

This collection of very short biographical blurbs is organized by the transgressions the women committed against the expectations of their sex. With cheesy alliterative chapters like Dreaded Desperados and Gutsy Gamblers, Holy Terrors and Pope Perturbers, Flamboyant Flirts and Lascivious Libertines, and so forth, the 150 biographies focus on the scandalous aspect of each women that best fits the chapter category. This makes many of the women within each chapter start to sound the same. In fact, even across the chapters the brevity of the biographies make the women sound similar. There are only so many ways to rebel against the "Angel in the House" trope but the sameness is highlighted by featuring so many women in so short a space. Stephens' tone is quite glib as she describes these women and it is difficult to figure out how the author determined which women to include as not all of them are nearly as notable as the others. Some of the women are very well known while others are quite unknown. The women profiled here are primarily American women of European descent and one blurb about a woman who contested her father's will for fifty years, only winning the case six years after her own demise is repeated twice within the pages. Given the nature of the book and the lack of in depth information (both intentional), this is really more a book to dip into and out of rather than to sit and read in one go. It was a decent enough diversion but no more than that. show less

This book has a lot right with it. There are short biographical sketches (the longest are two pages) of one hundred fifty women who followed their own paths in the Victorian era (1837-1901). There are authors, dancers, notorious outlaws and madames, sufragettes, doctors, an astronomer and clergy women. Some of these women I am familiar with: outlaw Belle Starr, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman. Others are less well known and I was happy to make their show more acquaintance: well known photographer Frances Johnston, who chose to do her self-portrait (the cover photo of the book) with cigarette, beer stein, a bit of leg and an intense posture.

A web site proclaims this book and its sequels to be the basis of 'Wild Women Clubs' throughout the world.

The author, however, carries the silly alliteration of the title into almost every paragraph of the book. What's quirky and fun in the title got old quickly in the context of the entire book. show less

I just can't read books like this - two small pages for each woman is not enough and I'd rather get to know a few than taste a lot. Maybe it'd be a good reference for an upper-level history classroom - each student could choose one woman to research.