Erica Brown 
Comedy and the Feminine Middlebrow Novel 
Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Taylor wrote witty and entertaining novels about the domestic lives of middle-class women. Widely read and enjoyed, their work was often dismissed as middlebrow. Brown argues their skilful use of comedy and irony provided the receptive reader with subversive commentary on the cruelties and disappointments of life.