Dorothy M. Richardson was a notable innovator in English prose writing, a pioneer in the rendering of modern women’s experience, and the first novelist to have the term “stream of consciousness” applied to her literary technique. She wrote short stories and essays, but her life’s work was the lengthy autobiographical novel

Pilgrimage

, published in twelve instalments (1915-38) during her lifetime and posthumously as a still-incomplete 13-part work in 1967.

Pilgrimage

begins as a coming-of-age novel or

Bildungsroman

in which we follow the progress towards self-realisation of the protagonist, Miriam Henderson, from the age of seventeen onwards, in a sequence of encounters and dialogues that is deliberately not shaped into a formal plot. The events and persons in Miriam’s life…

1719 words

Citation: Baldick, Chris. "Dorothy M. Richardson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 June 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3767, accessed 19 April 2024.]

3767 Dorothy M. Richardson 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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