Respectability in dress in the novels of Hesba Stretton

Costume

Volumn , Issue 32, 1998, Pages 60-68

  Maynard, Janet ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GARMENTS; TEXTILE HISTORY;

EID: 0031686428     PISSN: 05908876     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1179/cos.1998.32.1.60     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. As Helen Wood has pointed out in her article 'Dress in Popular Nineteenth Century Fiction (see Costme, 24 (1990), pp 85-93) the term novel was considered somewhat risqué during the nineteenth century and would have excluded works by authors such as Hesba Stretton from 'a host of respectable households' (p. 85). In this study, however, for the sake of convention, I have referred to the work of Hesba Stretton as 'novels' rather than 'books' or 'stories'.
2. M. N. Cutt, Ministering Angels - A Study of Nineteenth Century Evangelical Writing for Children (Wormley, Herts, 1979), p. 135.
3. S. Smiles, Self Help (London, 1859).
4. G. Best, Mid-Victorian Britain 1851-75 (London, 1971), p. 282.
5. See for example Women's World, a rather thinly disguised promotional book issued by Lever Brothers Ltd, Port Sunlight, in 1900 which offered advice on a myriad of subjects from household cleaning and laundry to social evenings in the home and taste in dress. Wives and their Husbands by Mrs George Gladstone (London, n.d.), a collection of cautionary tales, warns against the love of 'finery' and outlines the importance of dressing and behaving in accordance with one's social position.
6. H. Stretton, Poison in the Packet from Mrs Burton's Best Bedroom and Other Stories (London, 1878), ch. I, p. 22.
7. Ibid., ch. 2, p. 36.
8. H. Stretton, The Storm of Life (London, 1867), ch. 7, p. 60.
9. See H. Stretton, A Thorny Path (London, 1868), ch. 13, p. 121.
10. See H. Stretton, Little Meg's Children (London, 1868), ch. 10, p. 97.
11. See H. Stretton, Jessica's First Prayer (London, 1867), ch. 3, p. 45.
12. Ibid., ch. 4, p. 59.
13. Ibid., ch. 9, p. 92.
14. See H. Stretton, A Thorny Path, ch. 15, p. 136.
15. See H. Stretton, Cassy (London, 1874), ch. 4, p. 34.
16. See H. Stretton, The Lord's Pursebearers (London, 1883), ch. 2, p. 12.
17. See H. Stretton, A Thorny Path, ch. 7, pp. 58-59.
18. Ibid., ch. 9, p. 78.
19. See H. Stretton, A Thorny Path, ch. I, pp. 9-10.
20. See H. Stretton, Little Meg's Children, ch. 9, p. 90.
21. See H. Stretton, Under the Old Roof (London, 1882), ch. 9, pp. 85-86.