Dale Spender - Mothers of the Novel

Without the assistance of Candida Ann Lacey, this book would have had many more gaps. For the days that she has spent tracing references and finding books not deemed to exist, I am very very grateful; for the weeks she has spent reading novels and giving me the benefit of her insights and the luxury of good-humoured and inspirational support, I am most appreciative.

Helen Mott has also been a valuable colleague, and I am indebted to her for all the reading she has done, all the debates we have had, and for all the constructive comments that she has made.

My sister Lynne Spender has kept me in my place (and I dont just mean sitting at my desk), and her wit and wisdom have been a constant source of strength and enjoyment. Once more the postal services of England and Australia have played a most important part in conveying manuscripts and comments across oceans. Nothing has been lost and there have been no undue delays. For her constant feedback and unfailing irony I give her many thanks.

I want to thank Antonia Fraser who saved my sanity when I found that she too had read Urania and that I was no longer required to keep my thoughts on this early novel entirely to myself. Likewise, I want to acknowledge how rewarding it has been to receive a fund of information on early novels (and esoteric sources) from Cathy Davidson who is working on the development of fiction in the United States. And I am grateful to Debra Adelaide for her information on the Australian scene.

Susan Koppelman has provided me with some of the most illuminating insights into women writers and their lives and Joanna Russ in her book How to Suppress Womens Writing, and in her private correspondence has helped me to understand some of the dimensions of the problem and to learn to live with the understanding.

To Cheris Kramarae I owe much for the steady stream of supportive letters; to Sally Cline I am grateful for her patience and consideration; to Margaret Bluman I owe many a delightful day which could otherwise have been disastrous. To Anna Coote, I owe a great deal for her care and her chauffeuring abilities and to Renate Duelli Klein I have debts that I cannot hope to repay.

To Kate Jones for the correction of some of my prose, and to Ann Hall for the correction of some of my prejudices, I am grateful. And to the London Library where some of these old novels have been carefully preserved there should be a public expression of thanks.

I also want to thank Sue Butterworth and Jane Cholmeley of Silver Moon Bookshop for their willingness to try to find womens novels that are currently in print. And I want to thank Janet Todd for her superb Dictionary of British and American Women Novelists 1600-1800, which made my task of finding birth dates, death dates, and publication dates so much easier.

Without the assistance of David Doughan and Catherine Ireland at the Fawcett Library, I do not think that I would have been brave enough to have undertaken this task. And without the able typing skills of Glynis Wood, I would also have been daunted; not only has she done an excellent job in preparing this manuscript but the praise she has provided in her eagerness to collect each chapter and to get on with the story of the lost women novelists has been enormously encouraging.

From Ted Brown, who has taught me much about doing my homework, and who has ensured that it is not housework, I have received the greatest and most enduring support. And from my father, Harry Spender, who has good cause to complain of being a neglected male in my public records of acknowledgment, I have had (in my adult years) immense encouragement, assistance, and affection.

To Pippa Brewster, my editor, who has accepted a manuscript that bears no resemblance to my original proposal, I also want to acknowledge my thanks.

And to the more than 100 women novelists and their more than 600 novels which form the substance of this book, I have more than one debt. They have been for me one of the best things in life; for almost two years they have served as an excuse as I have been able to withdraw from the world on the good grounds that I have had too many novels to read!