Rhoda Broughton

A Beginner (Dodo Press) Rhoda Broughton

Rhoda Broughton (1840-1920) was a novelist. During her lifetime she was one of the Queens of the Circulating Libraries. She developed a taste for literature, especially poetry, as a young girl. Her first two novels appeared in 1867 in Dublin University Magazine. By 1890 she had published 14 novels over a period of 30 years in Bentley publishing house. She never got rid of the reputation of creating fast heroines with easy morals, which was true enough for her early novels, and thus suffered from the idea of her work being merely slight and sensational. Very often Broughton's women are strong characters and with them she manages to subvert traditional images of femininity. This culminates in A Waif's Progress (1905), in which Broughton creates a married couple who turns everything traditional upside down and the wife fulfills the stereotypes of an older, rich husband. Her other works include Cometh Up as a Flower (1867), Nancy (1873), Doctor Cupid (1886) and A Beginner (1893). In A Beginner, Broughton devices a young writer who has her work secretly published and then later torn apart by unknowing people right in front of her face. The novel deals with the moral issues of writing and whether it is appropriate for a young woman to write romantic or even erotic fiction.