Ripples of Water in the Letters and Novels of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (22 August 1812 – 23 September 1880)

Abstract

This article explores ripples of water as a metaphor in the letters and novels of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (1812 – 1880). There is a focus on the letters to Jane Walsh Carlyle (1801 – 1866) and Walter Baldock Durrant Mantell (1820 -1895) and the novels, Zoe: The History of Two Lives (1845) and The Half Sister: A Tale (1848). Water as a metaphor reflects and embodies both the world being described and the process of honing that description in text (Mittlefehldt 137). Throughout her letters and novels, the metaphor of water is used to reflect both the everyday and the romantic.