Why She Wrote
Women’s Work
Last month I checked out Why She Wrote by Lauren Burke and Hannah K. Chapman, and illustrated by Kaley Bales. It then went in my tower of library books to read and got a little lost for a while—long enough that I’d forgotten it was actually a graphic novel. But I’m so glad I finally pulled this one out of the stack and cracked it open.
Why She Wrote is such a fascinating book, and it’s told in an engaging manner that combines biographical text, cartoon, and mini-bibliography. In fact, I’m not even sure that “graphic novel” is the appropriate name for this genre; its authors dub the genre “graphic history,” and I think that fits. Why She Wrote is a collection of very short biographies of female writers living and writing between about 1750 and 1930. Each biography is then explored in greater depth with a short graphic piece (cartoon seems too informal but, well…cartoon) about a pivotal moment in the authoress’s life. If this doesn’t sound like riveting literature, think again. Some of these stories are fascinating, and so inspirational, especially given the barriers these women faced.
So many of these women supported themselves and their families in an era when marriage was the most popular of only a few paths to financial solvency. Some eschewed marriage (and its promise of financial stability) so that they could pursue their writing careers. Still others married but were either widowed or married to men who mismanaged money, and so the authors supported their families instead. While none of this sounds even mildly unusual today, most of these women were working at times when women couldn’t vote, attend most schools, or work in most jobs. Some also faced racism or social ostracism because of their sexual orientation. As a result, many of them published under pseudonyms and those who didn’t—and even some who did—faced heavy public critique for their work. A pattern emerges in their life stories: women whose work was either dismissed as frippery (because it was written by a woman) or, alternately, whose work was the subject of scandal because of its forthrightness. Whether they were writing romantic fiction, gothic stories, penning poetry, composing speeches, or recording (at times, in code) their daily lives, these women nonetheless persisted in describing the female experience.
One of my favorite episodes—and there are many, MANY in this book—is the account of Frances Burney (1752 - 1840). I’d never heard of Burney before reading this book, but apparently she was highly influential in her time. According to Why She Wrote, Virginia Woolf described Burney as “the mother of English fiction” and the title of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice was inspired by one of Burney’s works. Why She Wrote focuses on Burney’s account of her 1812 surgery for breast cancer, which she endured with little pain medication and even less preparation or information about what to expect from the surgery. Burney is said to have attached her own account of the procedure to her official medical record and sent it to a friend, determined that her experience of the harrowing surgery be captured.
There are so many other fascinating vignettes in this book, and I definitely learned about authors I did not know but want to get to know better (Edith Maude Eaton, Frances E. W. Harper, and Mary Wollstonecraft to name just a few). The authors of Why She Wrote help a sister out in this domain by providing a list of formative works by each of the authors depicted in their book. I was even excited to see that one, the diarist Ann Lister, is the subject of an HBO show, “Gentleman Jack,” which I’ve started watching. (England? Cool costumes? Period drama? I’m in.) Prior to writing this book, Burke and Chapman also hosted a podcast on women writers of the same era, called “Bonnets at Dawn” which I am anxious to give a listen to.
The back cover of the book concludes with a question: “When being a woman writer meant being undervalued, overlooked, or pigeonholed, why did she write?” What emerged from these women’s stories (for me) was a refusal to live life on the terms society dictated for them. Even when everything from social mores to law seemed to be working against them, these writers committed to their work capturing the experiences of women (either real or imagined). Put simply, these women wrote because they had something irrepressible to say. Writing both expressed and cemented their existence.
Pretty deep for a cartoon, eh?
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