Two Women of Mind and Purpose: George Cruickshank’s My Wife is a Woman of Mind and Amelia B. Edwards’ The Travelling Adventures of Mrs Roliston by Dona M. Cady

Abstract: The changing social agency of Victorian British women was often reflected through text and art. The pen and ink work of two artists -- well-known George Cruickshank and teenage Amelia B. Edwards -- reveal much about gender and agency for a woman in the mid-1800s. One particular Cruickshank’s comic, My Wife is a Woman of Mind, satirizes the self-absorbed intellectual, challenging the established political and social gender roles. Edwards’ The Travelling Adventures of Mrs Roliston depicts a strong, motivated, and resourceful woman, not deterred by shipwrecks, wolves, or even invasion. Both comics serve as representative caricatures of Victorian women of disparate mindful purposes in a time of change and possibilities.