Degrees:
D.Phil., Somerville College, Oxford
M.St., Somerville College, Oxford
M.A., Univ. College, Univ. of London
B.A., Univ. College, Univ. of London
Professor Bilston's research focuses on literature of the British Victorian period, particularly fiction and prose non-fiction by women.
Her first academic book, The Awkward Age in Women’s Popular Fiction, 1850-1900: Girls and the Transition to Womanhood, was published in 2004 by Oxford University Press. Her second book, The Promise of the Suburbs: A Victorian History in Literature and Culture was published by Yale University Press in 2019 and was a "Choice" Outstanding Academic Title for that year. Her new book project, The Hunt for the Lost Orchid, examines the rise of the cultural and literary obsession with orchids in the nineteenth century. Professor Bilston has also published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and two novels, Bed Rest (published in 2006 in nine languages) and Sleepless Nights (2009) with HarperCollins.
Professor Bilston teaches a wide range of courses in Victorian literature, from the 200 level (“Victorian Short Fiction”) to the 400/800 level (““British Literature of the 1890s"). She is also a Digital Humanities Fellow (AY 2021-22) and is excited to integrate new digital tools and skills into her teaching and research.
Bilston was honored to receive the Thomas Church Brownell Prize for Teaching Excellence in 2017.
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Victorian literature
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Literature of the home and suburbs
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Gardens and plant-hunting
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Constructions of gender
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Feminist approaches to literature
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Representations of adolescence; children's literature
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Victorian literature of the home and the suburbs
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Victorian gardens and plant-hunting
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Books:
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The Promise of the Suburbs: A Victorian History in Literature and Culture. Yale University Press, 2019.
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Sleepless Nights. HarperCollins, 2009.
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Bed Rest. HarperCollins, 2006.
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The Awkward Age in Women's Popular Fiction, 1850-1900: Girls and the Transition to Womanhood (1850-1900). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Selected Articles:
- ‘“Pictures, Plants and Ornaments”: Jane Ellen Panton and Creative Practice in the British Victorian Suburbs.’ Ilja Van Damme, Ruth McManus & Michiel Dehaene, eds. Suburban Creativity. Toronto: U of Toronto Press; forthcoming. [Global Suburbanisms Series]
- “‘The Most Extraordinary Novel of Modern Times’: Collaborative Fiction in The Gentlewoman.” Victorian Literature and Culture; forthcoming.
- “‘Your Vile Suburbs Can Offer Nothing But The Deadness Of The Grave’: The Stereotyping of Early Victorian Suburbia.” Victorian Literature and Culture 41 (2013): 621-42.
- “They Congregate in Towns and Suburbs”: The Shape of Middle-Class Life in John Claudius Loudon’s The Suburban Gardener.” Victorian Review 37 (2011): 144-59.
- “Queens of the Garden: Victorian Women Gardeners and the Rise of the Gardening Advice Text.” Victorian Literature and Culture 36 (2008): 1-19.
- “It is Not What We Read, But How We Read”: Maternal Counsel on Girls’ Reading Practices in Mid-Victorian Literature.” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 30 (2008): 1-20.
- “Authentic Performance in Theatrical Women’s Fictions of the 1870s.” Women’s Writing 11 (2004): 39-53.
- “Conflict and Ambiguity in Victorian Women’s Writing: Eliza Lynn Linton and the Possibilities of Agnosticism.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Writing 23 (Fall 2004).
- “A New Reading of the Anglo-Indian Women’s Novel (1880-1894): Passages to India, Passages to Womanhood.” English Literature in Transition 44 (2001): 320-341.
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- Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2019 for The Promise of the Suburbs: A Victorian History in Literature and Culture (Yale University Press, 2019).
- Thomas Church Brownell Prize for Teaching Excellence, 2017
- Junior Research Fellowship, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, England 2000-2001
- British Academy Studentship, 1996-9
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