title: Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth
author:  Nina Auerbach 
description: A daring and important book of cultural criticism <i>Woman and the Demon</i> is beautifully written and even moving. Undertaking no less than a subversive rereading of Victorian culture, Nina Auerbach attempts to make available to the 20th century certain aspects of that culture which we have learned to dismiss with contempt at great cost to ourselves Briefly her thesis is this: Where feminist criticism has consistently exposed the repressive implications of the Victorian myth of woman as angel in the house, that myth actually disguises another dominant but unformulated myththe myth of woman as demonic, polymorphous, vital, dangerous and transcendent She extends her study as comfortably to Dickens as to Bront, to Robert Browning as to Christina Rossetti, to Thomas Carlyle as to Florence Nightingale; and she reads these writers on the terms traditionally offered. Yet she changes them for us irrevocably [Her] argument is outrageous, provocative and convincing.<b><i></i></b><b>George Levine</b><b>, </b><b><i>New York Times Book Review</i></b><br /><br />A fascinating study which engages the reader continually [<i>Woman and the Demon</i>] makes us question again relations between art and life, literature and belief.<b><i></i></b><b>Jennifer Uglow</b><b>, </b><b><i>Times Literary Supplement</i></b><br /><br />In her witty and incisive study of cultural myththose systems of belief that flourish below the surface of an age in its popular literature and artAuerbachreconstructs the iconography of womanhood and the ways in which apparently complacent female types actually represented subversions of the power structure This readable narrative makes an important contribution to our understanding of myth, womanhood and of social cultural history.<b><i></i></b><b>Julia Epstein</b><b>, </b><b><i>Philadelphia Inquirer</i></b><br /><br />[A] brilliant revisionary study of the Victorian mythology of womanhood Not only is <i>Woman and the Demon</i> lively to read, but it goes beyond the depressing images of female oppression to discover a seething energy that is another, and perhaps more liberating, truth.<b><i></i></b><b>Adrienne Munich</b><b>, </b><b><i>Yale Review</i></b><br /><br />A study rich in intellectual probing, complex in interpretation, this is a major contribution to feminist criticism and a noteworthy reevaluation of the recent past.<b><i></i></b><b><i>Publishers Weekly</i></b><br /><br />This is one of those extremely rare scholarly books on which the adjective seminal can be bestowed without the slightest misgiving. It should not take long before the book will be acclaimed as one of the few major revaluations of Victorian literature and art.<b><i></i></b><b>V. C. Knoepflmacher</b>
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  ![](images/00003.jpg)
  
  HANDSOME DEVIL
  
  Donna McAteer
  
  1
  
  Handsome Devil
  
  by
  
  Donna McAteer
  
  HANDSOME DEVIL
  
  Donna McAteer
  
  2
  
  © copyright November 2006, Donna McAteer
  
  Cover art by Jenny Dixon, copyright November 2006
  
  ISBN 1-58608-989-7
  
  New Concepts Publishing
  
  Lake Park, GA 31636
  
  www.newconceptspublishing.com
  
  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the
  author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to
  living persons or events is merely coincidence.
  
  HANDSOME DEVIL
  
  Donna McAteer
  
  3
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1
  
  
  London, 1827
  
  Just a few centimeters more, thought Elizabeth, as she inched precariously
  along the huge branch outside her bedroom. Finally, swinging one dainty leg
  onto the ledge of the windowsill, she held on. She simply couldn’t be found in
  this position by any respectable member of the ton. As she gasped and strained
  to pull her own body weight into the well-lit room, she heard the orchestral
  entertainment for