The mistress-maid binary has provided an inexhaustible source of thematic content in narrative fiction as well as in visual art, drama and film. Narratives that deal with the relation between mistress and maid include those of Sarai and Hagar, Rachel and Bilhah, Leah and Zilpah in

16:1-16, 21:1-21 and 30:1-13; Camilla and her maid Leonela in the “Novel of a Curious Impertinent” in Part I of

(1605); Roxana and her maid Amy in Defoe’s

(1724); Arabella and Lucy in Charlotte Lennox’s

(1752); Lady Delacour and her maid Marriott in Maria Edgeworth’s

(1801); Cathy and Ellen Dean in Emily Brontë’s

(1847); Lady Dedlock and Hortense in Dickens’s

(1853); Margaret Hale and her maid Dixon in Elizabeth…

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Citation: Crehan, Stewart. "The mistress and maid figures in European literature". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 January 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19650, accessed 26 January 2025.]

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