This lecture examines the representational strategies of neo-Victorian life-writing in re-imagining a historical case of transgender. The uncertainty about Inspector-General James Miranda Barry’s (1789?-1865) sex and, consequently, the gender fluidity of cultural representations of Barry offers an exemplary model for the genre fluidity of neo-Victorian life-writing, where Barry is featured both as a boundary transgressor and a boundary marker. In exploring neo-Victorian life-writing’s ‘performance’ of the performance of James Barry, I will examine the linguistic (pronoun) choices and para/textual masquerades (titles, covers) of neo-Victorian biography, biofiction and biodrama.

Ann Heilmann is Professor of English Literature at Cardiff University, having previously held chairs at the Universities of Hull and Swansea and lectureships at Manchester Metropolitan and Bradford Universities. Her fields of expertise are Victorian and especially fin-de-siècle literature, contemporary neo-Victorianism, and literary women and gender studies.