Men of Letters, Writing Lives: Masculinity and Literary Auto/biography in the Late-Victorian Period

In this study Trev Broughton explores developments within Victorian auto/biography and asks what they can teach us about the conditions and limits of male literary authority. She focuses on two case studies from the period 1880-1903: the auto/biographical theories and achievements of Sir Leslie Stephen, one of the century's most revered exponents of the written life; and the debate surrounding James Anthony Froude's account of the marriage of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle.
The author examines the proliferation of the professions with a vested interest in the 'written life'; the speeding-up and institutionalization of the Life-and-Letters industry; and the consequent spread of a network of mainly male practitioners and commentators. She argues that these elements all contributed to a new 'auto/biographical' subjectivity.
Men of Letters, Writing Lives will be of interest to students and scholars of literature, cultural history, gender, and auto/biography.