Gender and Genre: An Introduction to Women Writers of Formula Westerns, 1900-1950 - Hardcover

Yates, Norris Wilson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826315690 ISBN 13: 9780826315694

Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr, 1995

Synopsis

Norris W. Yates presents here a number of women writers who have been overlooked in studies of Western formula fiction, arguing that their work constitutes a subgenre of the western novel. Like women writers of serious fiction, they appealed to the prejudices of the mass market on a superficial level but presented subtexts that contradicted or subverted those prejudices.

Writers such as B. M. Bower, Caroline Lockhart, Vingie E. Roe, Honoré Willsie Morrow, and Katharine Newlin Burt drew more on the conventions of the domestic novel than those of the dime novel Western. They deemphasized violence, especially gunplay, and portrayed active rather than passive heroines. They frequently manipulated the traditional ending, allowing the heroine to retain a portion of her premarital individuality and independence. In these ways the writers supported and yet subverted Western-style images of ideal femininity and male hegemony.

Gender and Genre will appeal to fans of the western novel as well as scholars in American literature and women's studies.

About this title

About the Author:

Norris W. Yates is professor emeritus of English at Iowa State University. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

From Library Journal:

Examining early-20th-century genre fiction from a feminist perspective is a fairly common mode of literary criticism of late. Here, Yates (emeritus English, Univ. of Iowa) turns his attention to women writers of Westerns. Yates examines in detail the works of five writers (B.M. Bower, Caroline Lockhart, Vingie E. Roe, Honore Willsie Morrow, and Katherine Newlin Burt), with brief consideration of five additional writers. His contention is that while on the surface their writing was well within the confines of the genre and societal expectations, women writers of Westerns were subverting traditional values in their fiction. This book is nicely written and the argument well supported. The subject, however, may be of limited interest to most readers. Recommended for academic libraries collecting women's studies literary works and Western fiction collections.?Denise Johnson, Bradley Univ. Lib., Peoria, Ill.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0826315690
• ISBN 13: 9780826315694
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192