[Commentary] For the Sake of the Children: Widows & Welfare in the 1960s

In the post-war decades, Britain prided itself on the new welfare state and the support it afforded children and mothers. But what about those women who had lost their husbands in the war? This post looks at the picture painted by two sources from the 1960s: a broadcast on child welfare by the Central Office of Information (1962) and a BBC Home Service radio broadcast called “World of the Widow” (1960).

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[Publication] Dead Husbands & Deviant Women

Over the past decade, the detective widow has become a well-established character in the little-explored subgenre of neo–Victorian crime fiction. In Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily series, the author argues, the detective widow investigates the gendered characteristics and complexities of Victorian widowhood while detecting the artistic crimes associated with historical fiction’s imitations and adaptations of the past.

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[Monograph] The Widow: A Literary & Cultural History (1837-1979)

My monograph on the history of widows in Britain will be published by Liverpool University Press in 2017. Here you can find a short summary of the contexts and aims of the book.  Widders are ‘ceptions to ev’ry rule. Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1837)   There are few statements that describe the significance of the figure […]

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