Ellis, Sarah Stickney. The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits. London, 1839.
The "Woman Question" was a gradually developing issue in the nineteenth century. Sarah Ellis is an example of the type of values addressed to the (upper-middle-class) Victorian woman. She claims that women must exert their moral influence over men, acting selflessly in order to be certain that the man acts with responsibility. It is an extremely humble form of public voice, mediated through the man.
Helsinger, Elizabeth K., and William Veeder. The Woman Question: Society and Literature in Britain and America, 1837-83. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
A three volume anthology on literature discussing the "Woman Question" as it arose in Victorian England. Presents primary texts and discusses the issues in context.
Patmore, Coventry. The Angel in the House. London, 1854.
A long poem about courtship and marriage, presenting the more domesticated side to the oppressive ideal of the Victorian woman. Interesting as a further insight into contemporary values and expectations. [Recent work (2004) by Sarah Eron demonstrates that the poem, which has been read as a simple-minded idealization of women that imprisons them in the home, has far more complexity that critics previously realized, in part because it takes the form of dramatic monologues in which the speakers are definitely not Patmore and much is tringed with irony. GPL]
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, London, 1792.
Perhaps worth dipping into for a discussion of hopes for an improvement on the female voice, stemming nearly a hundred years prior to Great Expectations and to writers such as Coventry Patmore.
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Last modified 1996