Contemporary Girlhood and Anne Boleyn in Young Adult Fiction

in Girlhood Studies
Author:
Stephanie Russo Macquarie University stephanie.russo@mq.edu.au

Search for other papers by Stephanie Russo in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed Close
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8205-885X
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2020.130103
Keywords:
biographical fiction; fandom; Henry VIII; high school; historical fiction; postfeminism; Tudor England
Restricted access
USD  $22.00
Click here to view the full Terms and Conditions

All currencies in US Dollar

PayPal Logo

Abstract

Anne Boleyn has been narrativized in Young Adult (YA) historical fiction since the nineteenth century. Since the popular Showtime series The Tudors (2007–2010) aired, teenage girls have shown increased interest in the story of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second and most infamous queen. This construction of Boleyn suggests that she was both celebrated and punished for her proto-feminist agency and forthright sexuality. A new subgenre of Boleyn historical fiction has also recently emerged—YA novels in which her story is rewritten as a contemporary high school drama. In this article, I consider several YA novels about Anne Boleyn in order to explore the relevance to contemporary teenage girls of a woman who lived and died 500 years ago.

Contributor Notes

Stephanie Russo (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8205-885X) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English, Macquarie University, Australia. She specializes in women's writing of the early modern period and has published widely on historical fiction, and representations of early modern women and girls. She is currently writing a monograph on the literary afterlife of Anne Boleyn. Email: stephanie.russo@mq.edu.au

  • Collapse
  • Expand

Girlhood Studies

An Interdisciplinary Journal

Cover Girlhood Studies
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
16
Keywords:
biographical fiction; fandom; Henry VIII; high school; historical fiction; postfeminism; Tudor England
Print Publication Date:
01 Mar 2020
Online Publication Date:
01 Mar 2020
Copyright:
© Berghahn Books 2020

  • Altrows, Aiyana. 2019. “Silence and the Regulation of Feminist Anger in Young Adult Rape Fiction.” Girlhood Studies;An Interdisciplinary Journal 12 (2): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2019.120202

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Armstrong, Jessie. 1901. My Friend Anne: A Story of the Sixteenth Century. London: Frederick Warne and Co.

  • Beauman, Nicole. 1983. A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-39. London: Virago Press.

  • Bordo, Susan. 2014. The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England's Most Notorious Queen. Boston: Mariner Books.

  • Bordo, Susan. 2016. “The Tudors, Natalie Dormer, and Our ‘Default’ Anne Boleyn.” In History, Fiction, and The Tudors: Sex, Politics, Power and Artistic License in the Showtime Television Series, ed. William B. Robison, 77–95. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Bradley, Mary Hastings. 1912. The Favor of Kings. New York: D. Appleton and Company.

  • Broomfield, Malyn. 2016. Mayflowers for November: The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn. London: Endeavour Press.

  • Brown, Joanne, and Nancy St. Clair. 2006. The Distant Mirror: Reflections on Young Adult Historical Fiction. London: The Scarecrow Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Bunbury, Selina. 1844. The Star of the Court, or, The Maid of Honour and Queen of England, Anne Boleyn. London: Grand and Griffith.

  • Burstein, Miriam Elizabeth. 2007. “The Fictional Afterlife of Anne Boleyn: How to Do Things with the Queen, 1901-2006.” Clio 37 (1): 1–26.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Capin, Hannah. 2019. The Dead Queens Club. Sydney: HQ Young Adult.

  • Cassidy, Laura. 1991. The Black Pearl. Surrey: Mills & Boon.

  • de Groot, Jerome. 2009. The Historical Novel. London: Routledge.

  • Demers, Patricia. 1993. Heaven upon Earth: The Form of Moral and Religious Children's Literature to 1850. Knoxville: University of Tennesse Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Gater, Dilys. 1979. The Witch-Girl. London: Robert Hale.

  • Gill, Rosalind. 2007. “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility.” European Journal of Women's Studies 10 (2): 147–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549407075898

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Herbert, Cassie. 2015. “Precarious Projects: The Performative Structure of Reclamation.” Language Sciences 52: 131–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2015.05.002

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Ius, Dawn. 2015. Anne & Henry. New York: Simon Pulse.

  • Kyle, Barbara. 2012. The Queen's Lady. London: Constable & Robinson.

  • Leslie, Emma. 1878. The Chained Book. London: The Sunday School Union.

  • Lindsey, Karen. 1995. Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII. Reading, UK: Addison-Wesley.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Lipscomb, Suzannah. 2013. “The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Crisis in Gender Relations?” In Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance, ed. Suzannah Lipscomb and Thomas Betteridge, 287–305. Surrey, UK: Ashgate.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Lofts, Norah. 1963. The Concubine. Stroud: Tree of Life Publishing.

  • Longshore, Katherine. 2013. Tarnish. London: Simon and Schuster.

  • Mantel, Hilary. 2017. “The BBC Reith Lectures: The Day Is for the Living.” BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tcbrp (accessed 15 October 2019).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Mayhew, Mickey. 2018. “Skewed Intimacies and Subcultural Identities: Anne Boleyn and the Expression of Fealty in a Social Media Forum.” London: South Bank University.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Meyer, Carolyn. 2002. Doomed Queen Anne. Orlando: Harcourt.

  • Russo, Stephanie. 2020. The Literary Afterlife of Anne Boleyn. Palgrave Macmillan.

  • Sander, Nicholas. 1877. Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism. Ed. David Lewis. London: Burns and Oates.

  • Schmais, Libby. 2012. Tudor Rules: How Anne Boleyn Helped Me Survive High School. Kindle.

  • Wallace, Diana. 2005. The Woman's Historical Novel: British Women Writers, 1900-2000. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

  • White, Hayden. 1978. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

  • McDougall, Charles, Steve Shill, Brian Kirk, Alison Maclean, Ciaran Donnelly, Jeremy Podeswa, Colm McCarthy, Dearbhla Walsh, and Jon Amiel, dirs. 2007–2010. The Tudors. UK, Canada, USA, and Ireland.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

Metrics

All Time Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 3324 1834 449
Full Text Views 209 15 0
PDF Downloads 474 22 0