ࡱ> ,.+] ibjbjzpzp 0 b b[ 8Pd p2pppppKKK$XKKKKKpp*KpppKpt@0p6p66XKKK+XKKKpKKKK6KKKKKKKKKB :  Name: Beth Rodgers, Affiliation: School of English, Queens University Belfast Paper Title: She talks Ireland: Irishness, Authorship and the Wild Irish Girls of L.T. Meade Born in Bandon, County Cork, in 1844, L.T. Meade holds the perhaps dubious honour of being one of the most prolific and most forgotten writers Ireland has ever produced. After leaving home in her twenties in order to pursue the pen in fin-de-sicle literary London, Meade found fame as the writer of over 280 books, most of which were aimed at girls. A significant number of these books featured Irish settings and characters, invariably in the form of a Wild Irish Girl disrupting the good order of an English boarding school with her brogue and untamed ways, as in titles such as Wild Kitty (1897), The Rebel of the School (1902) and Peggy from Kerry (1912). Meades formulaic books have, however, been much criticised for complying with questionable representations of gender, class and empire typical of many Victorian childrens writers, and her portrayals of Irish girls as noble savages arguably stand as arch examples of this. This paper, however, will offer a different reading of Meade and her Wild Irish Girls, who are not necessarily as one-dimensional as they might initially appear. Using a wide variety of periodical sources, such as interviews and reviews from contemporary girls magazines, I will explore the relationship between Meades Irishness, her self-construction as a women writer, and the popularity of her novels. I will argue that Meade was by no means as wide-eyed and nave as her Wild Irish Girls but instead had a savvy grasp on the demands of the marketplace and the notion of public persona which tells us much about the marketability of certain images of Ireland at the fin de sicle and may even go some way to deciphering the rather elusive Meade herself.     #R^_[ ] E h  $ 0 @ ^ b 󻰥ƙwwwlllaahnHh!OJQJhnHhXOJQJhnHh?h6OJQJhnHh?hOJQJhnHhKeOJQJhnHhV\"6OJQJhnHh9OJQJhnHhDOJQJhnHhWHiOJQJhnHhV\"OJQJh,&hV\"OJQJh,&hnHOJQJh,&hnH5OJQJhnHhV\">*OJQJ&R^ XYZ[]^`acdfghi`gdnHgd,&$a$gdnHgdnHgdnH  WXYZ[\^_abdehiǼh.6jh.6UhnHhDOJQJhnHhWHiOJQJhnHh!5OJQJhnHh!6OJQJhnHh!OJQJhnHhV\"OJQJ.:pV\"|. A!"#$% s666666666vvvvvvvvv666666>6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666hH6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666662&6FVfv2(&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv8XV~ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@_HmH nH sH tH @`@ NormalCJ_HaJmH sH tH DA D Default Paragraph FontRiR  Table Normal4 l4a (k (No List 4@4 ^Header  !4 4 ^Footer  !PK![Content_Types].xmlN0EH-J@%ǎǢ|ș$زULTB l,3;rØJB+$G]7O٭Vc:E3v@P~Ds |w< i  i i 8@0(  B S  ?t}Z[[]^^`acdfj_  XYYZjZ[[]^^`acdfj23 DV\",&.6Ke?hWHi}H9McnH!X[]@i@UnknownG*Ax Times New Roman5Symbol3. *Cx Arial9GaramondACambria Math 1hKg'Kg'B B 4XX2QPg]0!xx H She talks Ireland : Irishness, Authorship and the Wild Irish Girls of Ladmin Linda.MoloneyOh+'0  4@ ` l xLShe talks Ireland: Irishness, Authorship and the Wild Irish Girls of LadminNormalLinda.Moloney2Microsoft Office Word@@R@RB՜.+,0L hp  - Queen's University of Belfast X IShe talks Ireland: Irishness, Authorship and the Wild Irish Girls of L Title  !"$%&'()*-Root Entry FPz/1Table 6WordDocument0SummaryInformation(DocumentSummaryInformation8#CompObjr  F Microsoft Word 97-2003 Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q