The Feminine Middlebrow Novel

Abstract

In a very real sense, there is no such thing as the middlebrow. It would have been extremely hard in the interwar years to find any writer or publisher who would happily apply the label to their own works, and almost as hard to find a reader who would own the designation. Much like ‘ lower-middle class’ it is a label almost exclusively applied to others: a form of dismissal, sounding a powerful note of contempt. It remains a highly contentious term, one that even today produces anxiety and a curious sort of shame within academic circles. And yet I and other critics continue to argue that there is some value in the revivification of this ossified literary snobbery, some work of understanding that can only be achieved by the active examination and deployment of the concept of the middlebrow.¹