SAN MARCOS PUBLIC LIBRARY 625 E. HOPKINS ST. 512-393-8200
Q. I like stories that focus on women and family dynamics. I’ve been told this is called domestic fiction. Can you explain that term more in-depth, as well as recommend some book titles?
A. Domestic fiction, also sometimes called women’s fiction or sentimental fiction, first became popular in in the mid-19th century. According to Encyclopedia.com, “This literature focuses on the daily domestic lives of young, mostly middleclass white girls as they grow into womanhood. The plots of domestic fiction deliver didactic life lessons that members of the dominant culture considered useful in preparing nineteenthcentury female readers for their lives as adult women.” One of the first domestic fiction novels was Catharine Sedgwick's New England Tale, published in 1822.
