Ghostly Objects and the Horrors of Ghastly Ancestors in the Ghost Stories of Louisa Baldwin

Heholt, Ruth ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6963-6427 and Lloyd, Rebecca (2022) Ghostly Objects and the Horrors of Ghastly Ancestors in the Ghost Stories of Louisa Baldwin. Women's Writing, 29 (2). pp. 196-215. ISSN 1747-5848

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Abstract / Summary

This article examines the late Victorian ghost stories of Louisa Baldwin. Looking at several stories from her 1895 collection The Shadow on the Blind, we argue that, although her work is a part of the ongoing tradition of women’s ghost stories in the nineteenth century, they differ from most by the weight of emphasis given to family, ancestry, and the importance of material, inherited objects. We argue that Louisa cannot be separated out from her family, who included sisters married to Edward Poynter, and Edward Burne-Jones; her nephew Rudyard Kipling, and her son Prime Minister (to be) Stanley Baldwin. There is a material weight of family evident in her work that haunts her characters through ancestry and heritage. The ghost stories discussed here display a sense of fatality; of destiny, of inescapability, and finally of a dwindling and the dying out of the ancestral line. Tracing some sort of autobiographical criticism of over-bearing families, this article explores both real, and spectral “ghastly ancestors”.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number:	10.1080/09699082.2022.2050510
Additional Information:	issued 03-04-2022; epub 19-07-2022.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Literature and Literary Theory, Gender Studies
ISSN:	1747-5848
Subjects:	Writing & Journalism > Literature > English Literature
Courses by Department:	The School of Writing & Journalism > English & Writing
SWORD Depositor:	Mr Pub Router
Depositing User:	Mr Pub Router
Date Deposited:	13 Oct 2022 09:40
Last Modified:	31 Jan 2024 01:38
URI:	https://falmouth-test.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/4664

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