JOHNSON, Patricia E. 1951-

PERSONAL: Born February 22, 1951; married, 1989; children: one. Education: Earlham College, B.A., 1973; University of Minnesota, Ph.D., 1985.

ADDRESSES: Office—W356 Olmsted Building, School of Humanities, Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, Middletown, PA 17057. E-mail—pejl@psu.edu.

CAREER: University of Alabama, Huntsville, assistant professor, 1985-89; Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, associate professor of literature and humanities, 1989—.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: University of Minnesota fellowship.

WRITINGS:

Hidden Hands: Working-Class Women and Victorian Social-Problem Fiction, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 2001.

Contributor of articles to periodicals, including Mosaic, Studies in the Novel, and Victorians Institute Journal.

SIDELIGHTS: Patricia E. Johnson is an associate professor of literature and humanities at Pennsylvania State University. She has written articles on authors Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot that have appeared in periodicals including Mosaic, Studies in the Novel, and Victorians Institute Journal.

In her first book, Hidden Hands: Working-Class Women and Victorian Social-Problem Fiction, Johnson analyzes the role working women played during the industrial revolution. A large number of women worked in order to support the family when the father figure could not provide enough wages. Working women were not seen in a positive way, however, because they went against the beliefs of how women should act during the Victorian era. As a result, working women were not represented in novels published during that time, or if they were included, then they were represented in a negative manner. "Johnson's prose is lucid and her readings plausible," noted M. E. Burstein in a Choice review.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, February, 2002, M. E. Burstein, review of Hidden Hands: Working-Class Women and Victorian Social-Problem Fiction, p. 1048.

English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, spring, 2002, Emily Clark, review of Hidden Hands, p. 254.

Times Literary Supplement, May 10, 2002, Sara Hudston, review of Hidden Hands, p. 31.

ONLINE

Ohio University Press Web site,http://www.ohiou.edu/ (September 5, 2002).

University of Southern California Web site,http://www.usc.edu/ (September 5, 2002).*