Abstract
This chapter showcases Matilda Betham-Edwards’s contribution to Punch, including her use of comedy as a strategic response to the controversy connected with Eliza Lyn Linton’s ‘Girl of the Period’ articles. As a mode, comic writing has no established criteria, but it has largely been seen in terms of a masculine literary tradition. For both these reasons the comic journalism of Betham-Edwards has been largely overlooked. However her authorship of the series ‘Mrs Punch’s Letters to Her Daughter’ (1868) reveals an awareness of contemporary political and reformist debates, as well as providing an alternative means of critiquing gender roles, while by definition subverting expectations of the female author.
In memory of Nickianne Moody, expert in popular fictions, preserver of female culture, cat lover, humourist par excellence, and the originator of the ICVWW lemon torte joke.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2014–2015 Clare Horrocks undertook the transcription and identification of the contributors from the records of commissions and added these to the Gale-Cengage Punch Historical Archive 1841–1992 so that they are now easily accessible.
- 2.
In fact when ‘Miss Edwards’ appeared in the Punch ledgers the project team working on identifying Punch contributors (see note 1) initially confused her with her better known cousin Blandford Edwards.
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Horrocks, C., Moody, N. (2020). Crumbs from the Table: Matilda Betham-Edwards’s Comic Writing in Punch. In: Gavin, A., de la L. Oulton, C. (eds) British Women's Writing from Brontë to Bloomsbury, Volume 2. British Women’s Writing from Brontë to Bloomsbury, 1840-1940, vol 2. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38528-6_9
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