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Three Generations of English Women: Memoirs and Correspondence of Susannah Taylor, Sarah Austin, and Lady Duff Gordon by Janet Ross is a distinctive, but underestimated, Victorian family biography. It narrates the lives of her mother, Lucie Duff Gordon, her grandmother, Sarah Austin, and identifies her great-grandmother, Susannah Taylor, as the originator of this female line of intellectual inheritance, which Ross is indebted to. This article examines how Ross’s work motivates women’s intellectual endeavours by presenting a positive example of female intellectual legacy sustained successfully by foremothers. A Victorian writer, historian and translator, she recognises in her maternal heritage a model of intergenerational mentorship and interaction that promotes intellectual engagement, exchange and transformations. Three Generations of English Women shows that female intergenerational legacy is central not only in uncovering the contribution of Ross’s foremothers but also to a deeper understanding of the development of nineteenth-century women’s intellectual lives. |
