Cornelia Turner’s Transnational Risorgimento

Even though Cornelia Turner wrote two novels that supported the Italian unificationmovement (Risorgimento), she is mostly remembered for her relationships with her famous male contemporaries, namely Percy Bysshe Shelley and Giovanni Ruffini. I analyze how Turner’s first novel, Angelo Sanmartino: A Tale of Lombardy in 1859 (1860), attempted to garner Anglophone support of the Risorgimento. Additionally, I argue that Turner complicates Diana Moore’s concept of Risorgimento “revolutionary domesticity,” and that her life’s work offers critical insight into how English women writers supported Italian unification. This thesis constructs the first comprehensive biography of Turner, examines her literary and political influence on her contemporaries, and highlights her role in the Italian nationalist movement. In doing so, I share just one example of how nineteenth-century women writers played an integral role in how Italy became a nation, how that nation has always defied borders, and the transnational nature of nation-building.