Women & Playwriting in Nineteenth-Century Britain

"Why does historical memory exclude nineteenth-century women playwrights when hundreds worked prolifically across the spectrum of professional theatre, amateur theatricals, and publishing? What might it mean to adjust the collective focus of cultural historians and literary critics so that these women can come into view? This collection of essays, written by a team of leading scholars in the field, undertakes not simply to recover the names and careers of women playwrights but to call into question the whole idea of what a playwright is, what she does, and why it matters. Gender inquiry is the start: destabilizing the category of playwrights loosens the borders of theatre history making it possible to reconceptualize theatre and drama not as products of culture but as social processes dynamically interacting with culture. Book jacket."--Jacket.