Beautiful Boredom: Idleness and Feminine Self-Realization in the Victorian Novel

This volume explores boredom as a possible force for good in the Victorian novel. Boredom in these works is an important means through which female characters are able to achieve a greater sense of self-awareness. In her discussion of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847), George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-72), and Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (1881), the author examines both the deleterious and restorative aspects of boredom and shows how this subtle theme has continued to be used by more modern authors.