Arguably Victorian England’s most prolific female writer of historical texts geared for a contemporary popular readership, Agnes Strickland’s reputation today rests largely on the twelve-volume Lives of the Queens of England (1840-1848), written with her sister Elizabeth, whose contributions were anonymous during their lifetimes. Without academic or institutional credentials, Strickland invented herself as a writer of historical texts, increasingly based on personal research into original materials, and produced books that move toward revisionist life writing—an expression of her resistance to the control of cultural norms shaping both her subjects and herself as a writer of history.
Born in London on A…
1176 words
Citation: Petersen, Robert. "Agnes Strickland". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 July 2022 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4264, accessed 24 November 2024.]