Reconceiving Victorian pregnancy and childbirth: A case study of Ellen Wood's East Lynne and Lord Oakburn's Daughters
| dc.contributor.author | Leighton, Mary Elizabeth | |
| dc.contributor.author | Surridge, Lisa | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-06-22T22:18:09Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-06-22T22:18:09Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Focusing on East Lynne (1860–61) and Lord Oakburn's Daughters (1864) and referring to Victorian advice manuals for pregnant women, this article argues that Ellen Wood centered pregnancy and childbirth as critical experiences of women's lives. In East Lynne, Isabel gives birth to her first child in a difficult labor that nearly kills her; her future adultery originates in the lying-in room; and the final section heightens Isabel's torture as she witnesses Barbara's second pregnancy. Lord Oakburn's Daughters reuses elements of East Lynne while intensifying its focus on pregnancy, postpartum vulnerability, and lying in. The novel opens with an explicit childbirth scene; its murder plot is set in the lying-in room; and its central metonym, a locket, stands for women's bonds established during childbirth. While pregnancy and childbirth are thought to have remained largely unrepresented in Victorian fiction, both novels use contemporary vocabulary and codes to represent these experiences. Moreover, Wood created her particular brand of gestational sensation by featuring women in white as figures of maternal loss, longing, and postpartum trauma. Studying these novels thus not only provides evidence of how Wood represented pregnancy, childbirth, and maternal feeling but also models a narratological method for analyzing such representations in mid-Victorian fiction generally. | |
| dc.description.reviewstatus | Reviewed | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Faculty | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Leighton, M. E., & Surridge, L. (2024). Reconceiving Victorian pregnancy and childbirth: A case study of Ellen Wood’s East Lynne and Lord Oakburn’s Daughters. Victorian Literature and Culture, 52(4), 617–651. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1060150324000019 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://doi.org/10.1017/S1060150324000019 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/24004 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Victorian Literature and Culture | |
| dc.rights | Attribution 4.0 International | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject.department | Department of English | |
| dc.title | Reconceiving Victorian pregnancy and childbirth: A case study of Ellen Wood's East Lynne and Lord Oakburn's Daughters | |
| dc.type | Article |