Subjugated scientific knowledges : detecting the Victorian female scientist

This thesis endeavours to examine the presence and absence of female scientists in Victorian fiction by exploring the female experience of science in fiction and in reality. The impact of culture, society and traditional notions of female ‘knowing’ are explored. Real-life women scientists’ work is considered in addition to fictional creations. Firstly, the research explores women such as Jane Marcet’s contribution to popular science writing and the dissemination of scientific knowledge to a predominantly female readership. Secondly, the steps towards women scientists becoming experts in their chosen fields of science are scrutinised. From the limited fictional portrayals of female scientists themes such as the challenges of being an expert scientist, and the implications scientific learning has for love, self-knowledge and on women’s place in society are found.

Novels examined include Wilkie Collins’s Heart and Science: A Story of the Present Time, Harriet Stark’s The Bacillus of Beauty and H.G. Wells’s Ann Veronica. Shared experiences and themes also emerge in female detective fiction, where texts such as C.L. Pirkis’s The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective, highlight how the female detective draws upon traditional female knowledge alongside scientific method and utilises them in the field of crime. Both the female scientist and the female detective illuminate how subjugation to the periphery creates new arenas in which women encounter science.