Chapter 2 - ‘It Is My Lady’s Hand’

Summary

Chapter 2 takes up the question of gendered labour via an investigation into five women editors involved with Frederick Furnivall’s New Shakspere Society (NSS) during the late nineteenth century. Focusing in particular on the story of Teena Rochfort Smith, it addresses problematic elements of Furnivall’s relationships with the women he mentored, offering a new reading of this seminal figure for the #MeToo era. It reveals the identity of Jane Lee, previously known only as the author of an NSS paper on the Henry VI plays, and discusses Emma Gollancz and Elizabeth Lee, sisters and collaborators of two major Shakespeare editors, and Charlotte Stopes, who suffered both personally and professionally for her unwillingness to subordinate herself and her ambitions to male colleagues.