The pilgrimage of Dorothy Richardson - Joanne Winning

Pilgrimage, Dorothy Richardson's thirteen-volume opus of
autobiographical fiction, follows the entire arc of an independent
woman's life in early twentieth-century Britain. It is one of the major
works of the modernist period; indeed, it is considered by many a
classic of modernist literature. In this book, Joanne Winning argues in
this book, however, that Richardson's novels continue to be
misunderstood in several important ways. Winning is the first critic to
fully explore the issues of lesbian identity in the novels.
Examining primary materials, manuscript drafts, and Richardson's
previously unstudied correspondence, Winning demonstrates that Pilgrimage contains a carefully constructed, though concealed, subtext of lesbian desire and sexuality. The Pilgrimage of Dorothy Richardson
explores the ways in which Richardson used such cultural forms as
sexology, psychoanalysis, and other lesbian and modernist literature of
her time to create an intertextual dialogue about lesbian identity.
Winning suggests that a sustained reading of lesbian sexuality in Pilgrimage is crucial to a more complete understanding of Richardson's long and sometimes difficult work.
Winning also places Pilgrimage in the context of other
works by female modernist writers that record lesbian identity. This
approach, Winning suggests, is the first step toward recognizing and
defining a literary movement that can be termed "lesbian modernism," as
well as toward a deeper understanding of how lesbian modernist writers
helped shape modernist literature as a whole.