Introduction

Abstract

The initial impetus for this book was Anita Brookner’s depiction, in the novel Hotel du Lac, of a conversation between Edith Hope, a writer of romantic fiction, and her publisher. Edith is being asked to produce books with modern, liberated heroines who have more contemporary (as the publisher sees it) psychosexual dilemmas. Her answer suggests that the publisher has failed to understand the ways in which the gender positionings in the romance genre reflect and construct readers’ fantasies and expectations about their sexual roles:

“And anyway, if she’s all that liberated, why doesn’t she go down to the bar and pick someone up? I’m sure it’s entirely possible. It’s just that most women don’t do it. And why don’t they do it?” she asked, with a sudden return of assurance. “It’s because they prefer the old myths, when it comes to the crunch. They want to believe that they are going to be discovered, looking their best, behind closed doors, just when they thought that all was lost, by a man who has battled across continents, abandoning whatever he may have had in his in-tray, to reclaim them.” (1984: 27)