Hearts and Minds

The first episode of this six-part series on the English novel looks at the role of the novel through the lens of female emancipation. Readings and contributions from award-winning contemporary novelists and experts to bring literary and historical context to some of the most influential novels ever written. Since Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela, published in 1740, the novel has been a predominantly female literary form, offering more opportunities to women writers than any other and turning a powerful lens on the full range and depth of women's lives. Yet novels that explore women's stories, characters and emotions have often been attacked as frivolous - and sometimes even by women themselves. However they are only frivolous to people for whom love, sex, friendship, family are trivial matters. There have been plenty of serious female novelists too, from George Eliot and Middlemarch to Constance Maud's propaganda novel No Surrender. The novel can be a powerful tool of social change as this series will show.