Evangelicalism

Definition

Although their names are not well-known today, Evangelical women wrote a wide variety of popular texts during the Victorian period, including tracts, novels, hymns, poetry, devotionals, parenting manuals, primers, memoirs, biographies, and accounts of charity work. Some of these texts sold hundreds of thousands of copies, rivaling – or even exceeding – the popularity of works by more canonical Victorian authors. Their reach was also surprisingly vast: many were reviewed and read on both sides of the Atlantic and translated into multiple languages. Works by Mary Martha Sherwood, Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, Charlotte Elliott, Maria Louisa Charlesworth, Emma Jane Worboise, Frances Havergal, and Hesba Stretton continued to be reprinted for decades after their authors’ deaths. While Evangelical writers have never been as widely studied as the titans of the Victorian age, a growing number of scholars are turning to these women as crucial to understanding nineteenth-century literary...