Rejecting Rochester: C. French Richards and the Queer Legacy of Jane Eyre

• Published in: Women's writing : the Elizabethan to Victorian period Vol. 31; no. 4; pp. 641 - 658
• Main Author: Foley, Vera R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 01.10.2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: American Civil War; Jane Eyre school; queer womanhood
• ISSN: 0969-9082; 1747-5848
• DOI: 10.1080/09699082.2024.2334148

In September 1864, The New York Times ran a brief advertisement for a new novel titled John Guilderstring's Sin, declaring it "an intense and passionate love story, in the 'Jane Eyre' style." By so labelling the novel, this advert presented its author, C. French Richards, as a member of the "Jane Eyre school": a term coined by Godey's to describe the host of successful American women authors who rewrote Charlotte Brontë's iconic plot for a largely conservative antebellum and wartime audience. Richards, however, failed to attract the popular following of her fellow "Jane Eyre" authors, who typically sanitised Brontë's hedonistic hero and doubled down on the rewards of the marriage plot. Richards distinguishes herself by writing a "Jane Eyre" novel that rejects rather than embraces heteronormative romance. She presents her own Byronic male lead, the titular John Guilderstring, as a corrupt, undesirable choice for her consciously androgynous heroine, Mattie, whose chivalric courtship of women serves as an antidote to his predatory behaviour. By presenting Mattie's navigation of queer womanhood and toxic masculinity via a rewriting of the widely read Jane Eyre, Richards defies the American "Jane Eyre school's" stranglehold on Brontë's text.