Join us for a lecture by URI PhD candidate Anna Brecke:

Constructing Femininity: Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Material Culture and the OED

Victorian novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon is best remembered for her 1860s sensation fiction, but her engagement with material culture in a more than 40 year writing career left a lasting mark on the English language. The over 1,400 OED entries that cite Braddon’s work include first in entry or first in sense words like top-hat, down pillow, and perhaps most notably fashion magazine.

This talk considers her interest in material cultural through the OED record and the way Braddon uses material culture words strategically in three of her later novels, Asphodel, Mount Royal and Vixen.