Unremarkable as “the bridge … or the butcher’s wife”: pregnancy, illegitimacy, and realism in Ellen Wood’s A Tale of Sin

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The authors of this article gratefully acknowledge the editorial advice of Alexandra Wettlaufer and the NCC’s anonymous readers, as well as the research assistance of Joe Diemer.2 After Wood’s death on 10 February 1887, the last stories were published posthumously.3 The byline appears for Wood’s serial novel Bessy Rane in the Argosy’s table of contents for volume 10 (July–December 1870): iii.4 For the series’ setting, Wood drew on her own childhood experiences of growing up in Worcestershire (“Ellen Wood”).5 See Malone (Citation2000, 370).6 See Cox (Citation2023) Confinement.7 All further references to A Tale of Sin are to the Argosy serial.8 When Wood revised and expanded Parkwater for 1875 serialization in the Argosy (Allan Citation2011, 9), she substantially altered its plot details, showing her attention to audience and social context.9 See Dau and Preston (Citation2015).10 With studied irony, Wood uses her schoolboy voice to complain about the constraints imposed by imperious magazine editors: Johnny frequently laments the length limitations that require him to curtail his storytelling, at one point avowing “that’s all I can put in” (Wood Citation1870b, 58).11 The quotation is from Wood Citation1870b, 298.12 Notably, Wood never explains how Duffham came into possession of Mary Layne’s diary and says that Mrs. Layne failed to burn Susan’s letters to her mother, which made their way into Duffham’s hands.13 Ironically, Lady Chavasse bears the same surname as one of the most famous medical advice writers.14 Whereas in sensation fiction the em-dash typically represent unspeakable emotions, here it represents the pragmatic interruption of the doctor by the night bell.15 See, for example, “Misfortune,” the first panel in Augustus Egg’s Past and Present triptych (1858).16 See Pettitt (Citation2012), “Time Lag.”17 Hetty’s confession to Dinah in Adam Bede is another such example.18 His ignorance replays Carlton’s failure to recognize his infant son in Lord Oakburn’s Daughters.Additional informationNotes on contributorsMary Elizabeth LeightonMary Elizabeth Leighton is Professor of English at the University of Victoria, co-author of The Plot Thickens: Illustrated Victorian Serial Fiction from Dickens to Du Maurier (Ohio UP, 2019), co-editor of The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Prose 1832–1901 (2012), and former co-editor of Victorian Review (2006–2016). With Lisa Surridge, she is working on Great Expectations: Pregnancy in Victorian Fiction, a project that includes a co-edited collection of short articles on the Victorian Web titled Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Age of Victoria. With Andrea Korda and Vanessa Warne, she co-organizes Crafting Communities, an award-winning resource hub about nineteenth-century material culture for educators and makers.Lisa SurridgeLisa Surridge is Professor of English and Associate Dean of Humanities at the University of Victoria. She is author of Bleak Houses: Marital Violence in Victorian Fiction (Ohio UP, 2005); co-editor with Mary Elizabeth Leighton of the Broadview Anthology of Victorian Prose, 1832–1901 (2012) and of Victorian Review from 2006–2016; and author of articles on Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mona Caird, Wilkie Collins, and the Brontës. With Mary Elizabeth Leighton, she is co-author of The Plot Thickens: Illustrated Victorian Serial Fiction from Dickens to Du Maurier (Ohio UP, 2019); they are currently working on Great Expectations: Pregnancy in Victorian Fiction, a project that includes a co-edited collection of short articles on the Victorian Web titled Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Age of Victoria.