Private Space in Self Control

Two years ago I spent a very long time creating this review of Self-Control by Mary Brunton (1811), with reference to A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (1929). For those of you reading this as a Jane Austen contemporary novel, it may be interesting to hear that Austen read Self-Control before any of her own works were published, and characteristically wrote "my opinion is confirmed of its’ being an excellently-meant, elegantly-written Work, without anything of Nature or Probability in it" (Oct. 1813).
I discuss five functions that private space has for the heroine of Self Control, Laura Montreville:
- Artistic (a studio, enabling her to attempt to engage in profitable creative labour)
- Religious (a sanctuary for prayer)
- Emotional (a space in which to experience emotions that must be suppressed in public)
- Rational (a place in which to process important decisions)
- Protective (an escape for social engagements and more threatening events)

#JaneAustenJuly