About the Author

Sarah Bilston is professor of literature at Trinity College. She is the author of The Awkward Age in Women’s Popular Fiction, 1850-1900 and two novels, Bed Rest and Sleepless Nights.

Reviews

“What Sarah Bilston’s book does not promise, but delivers, is actually a female history of the suburbs in Victorian literature and culture” — Laurent Bury, Cercles

Selected for Choice's 2019 Outstanding Academic Titles List
 

“The Promise of the Suburbs reveals that, far from enforcing oppressive conformity, the suburbs offered diverse social interactions, opportunities for female professionalism, and new ideas about domestic space and urban modernity. This impressive book is a must-read for anyone interested in mid-Victorian culture.”—Talia Schaffer, Queens College, CUNY, and Graduate Center, CUNY

“No other book carries the analysis of suburban writing and writing about suburbia as far or as fascinatingly as Bilston has achieved here. I learned a lot from reading this book.”—Annette Federico, James Madison University

"Sarah Bilston’s book is a revelation, one that overturns conventional assumptions of suburbia’s sterility to reveal a site of diversity, sociability, and widened opportunities for women. It is essential reading."—Linda K. Hughes, Texas Christian University

"In this compelling account of Victorian suburbia, Bilston completely overturns our preconceptions.  The suburbs, she demonstrates, were not dull and stultifying, but a site of self-invention, social experimentation, and creativity."—Kate Flint, University of Southern California