New Woman Fiction, 1881–1899

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General Editor: Carolyn W de la L Oulton
Volume Editors: Brenda Ayres, Karen Yuen and Alexandra Warwick (Part I); Adrienne E Gavin, SueAnn Schatz and Vybarr Cregan-Reid (Part II); Andrew King, Paul March-Russell and Carolyn W de la L Oulton (Part III)

The figure of the 'New Woman' is notoriously hard to pin down. She was variously derided in the late nineteenth century press as mannish and unattractive, over educated and hysterical, unsexed and oversexed. The very ambivalence of this image of the New Woman was often useful to her opponents, who had a seemingly endless range of stereotypes to fall back on in discussing her exploits. Punch regularly entertained its readers with satirical rhymes and fanciful cartoons designed to undermine the claims of the New Woman to greater economic and social freedom.

Not surprisingly in the face of such hostility, not all late Victorian feminists identified themselves as ‘New Women’, but all had an interest in engaging with the figure presented to them and according to which they were judged. But while there is some consensus as to which writers of this period can be identified thus, the authors themselves never offered a unified or cohesive account of their aims.

New Woman writing of the late Victorian period may insist on the sexual purity of both men and women, or by contrast, demand greater sexual freedom outside marriage. Some writers offer a realist account of the lives uneducated women were obliged to lead if they failed either to marry or to obtain suitable employment; others offer a more romantic account of the special qualities brought by the woman of genius to the writing of fiction. New Woman writers may be openly committed to the social questions of their time, or quietly subversive of the ideological trappings that sought to deny them a voice. Some worked tirelessly in the cause of social equality, while others insisted on the innate difference between the sexes.

The wide range of New Woman fiction published in the last two decades of the nineteenth century is far from revealing a recognizable position with which contemporary feminists could identify. Rather these texts indicate a complex, often tangled, web of questions about woman’s potential and the social forces that continued to shape her experience.

Part I

Given the increased – and increasing – focus on New Woman writing over the past two decades, there is a clear demand for scholarly editions of texts that will enable further research. This first part contains three early examples of the genre, each portraying women in ways wholly different from those which precede them.

Kith and Kin (1881) by Jessie Fothergill has not been published in book form since 1903, despite the author’s popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. Amongst many interesting, convoluted gender dynamics portrayed in the story, the character of Judith Conisbrough is of particular interest as a New Woman heroine. Conisbrough is born into a respectable yet poor family, but in contrast to the accepted societal mores of the day, she rejects a marriage proposal that would lead to financial stability and instead seeks out a career that allows her to earn her own money.

Vernon Lee’s Miss Brown was greeted with mixed reviews on its publication in 1884. A thinly disguised portrait of many of Lee’s (real name: Violet Paget) friends and acquaintances, the novel caused considerable offence to those concerned. The central protagonist is a young governess, Anne Brown, whose involvement with her guardian and suitor, Walter Hamlin, allows Lee to promote her own ideas on gender, power, art, and society.

The Wing of Azrael (1889) was Mona Caird’s first novel to be published under her own name, though she is best known for her article ‘Marriage’ which was published in the Westminster Review (1888). In this article, Caird describes marriage as ‘the most hypocritical form of woman-purchase’, so it is no surprise that The Wing of Azrael is an attack on the patriarchal ideology of feminine submission.

Part II

This second part of New Woman Fiction covers four texts from the 1890s, as well as Netta Syrett’s autobiography. These works helped to crystallize the idea of the ‘New Woman’ during a period where the role of women was increasingly debated and challenged, not least due to the growth of the suffrage movement.

The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective (1894) by C L Pirkis is a collection of seven stories about a female investigator. Not only is Brooke one of the first female detectives, but unlike other contemporary women sleuths, she is shown to be an independent career woman, and not driven to her cause by the need to redeem a male relative's honour. The stories' significance lies not merely in the influence they had over later female detectives, but also in Brooke’s triumphs over gender stereotypes and expectations.

Annie E Holdsworth’s 1895 novel The Years that the Locust Hath Eaten tells the story of a young writer who avoids an arranged marriage with a landed gentleman by marrying the son of a country merchant, against her father’s wishes. The novel is a critique of middle-class marriage and offers a wider look at the intricacies of the British class system. Also includes Holdworth's 'Joanna Traill, Spinster' (1893).

Nobody’s Fault (1896) is the first novel of Netta Syrett. A fin de siècle re-writing of two more cautiously feminist works (Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and Dinah Craik’s Olive) the novel recounts the different lives of two friends from differing social backgrounds. Their contrasting circumstances and the opportunities that these afford allow questions about economics to enter the feminist debate. Her autobiography, The Sheltering Tree (1939) is also included.

Part III

The novels in this collection include one by a fierce opponent to the New Woman movement, as well as two from women whose work can be seen as archetypal New Woman fiction.

Ouida (real name: Maria Louise Ramé) was a particularly vocal opponent of the New Woman despite creating numerous example of the type during her prolific writing career. The Massarenes (1897) is a powerful satire on the consumer society of the 1890s and the superficial values of high society. It centres on the Massarene family and their entrance into Society via despicable means. William Massarene’s daughter, Katherine, rejects such ill-gotten gains, however, and follows her own path.

George Egerton was the pen name of Mary Chavelita Dunne – a charismatic woman whose work foreshadowed that of later female novelists such as Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf. The Wheel of God (1898) uses literary devices which can be seen as indicative of proto-modernism. Woman is here depicted as an unknowable force, and in a style that is fragmentary and episodic. It is a fascinating and unique example of women’s fiction from this period.

First published in 1899, Mary Cholmondeley’s Red Pottage was an instant bestseller in Britain and America, provoking both admiration and scandal among its late Victorian readership. Rachel West – a distinctly New Woman heroine – who lies at the centre of this tale, becomes instrumental in the redemption of a dissolute male character, whom she is nonetheless unable to save. West’s friend, Hester Gresley, also has a male counterpoint in her clergyman brother, who sabotages her writing by burning the manuscript of her new novel – her ‘child’. A novel of importance for its depiction of female friendship as well as its treatment of the Church, Cholmondeley’s work has become more fashionable in recent years, making this edition timely.

• first scholarly edition of many of these works
• texts reset
• editorial apparatus: general introduction for each volume, significant textual variants noted, end notes

Sample pages

• Vernon Lee, Miss Brown (1884): sample pages + notes

Contents

Part I

Volume 1
Jessie Fothergill Kith and Kin (1881) edited by Brenda Ayres.

Volume 2
Vernon Lee Miss Brown (1884) edited by Karen Yuen

Volume 3
Mona Caird The Wing of Azrael (1889) edited by Alexandra Warwick.

Part II

Volume 4
C L Pirkis The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective (1894) edited by Adrienne E Gavin.

Volume 5
Annie E Holdsworth The Years that the Locust Hath Eaten (1895); Annie E Holdsworth 'Joanna Traill, Spinster' (1893) edited by SueAnn Schatz.

Volume 6
Netta Syrett Nobody's Fault (1896) and The Sheltering Tree (1939) edited by Vybarr Cregan-Reid

Part III

Volume 7
Ouida The Massarenes (1897) edited by Andrew King.

Volume 8
George Egerton The Wheel of God (1898) edited by Paul March-Russell.

Volume 9
Mary Cholmondeley Red Pottage (1899) edited by Carolyn W de la L Oulton.

Reviews

'Invaluable for scholars of late-century fiction ... an ambitious and worthy project.'
– Tamara MacDonald, New Books Online 19 (read the full review here)

Related titles

• Art and Womanhood in Fin-de-Siècle Writing : The Fiction of Lucas Malet, 1880–1931
• British Socialist Fiction, 1884–1914
• Conduct Literature for Women, Part V, 1830–1900
• Fictions of Dissent : Reclaiming Authority in Transatlantic Women's Writing of the Late Nineteenth Century
• Let the Flowers Go : A Life of Mary Cholmondeley
• Mary Cholmondeley Reconsidered
• The Selected Writings of Andrew Lang
• The Women Aesthetes : British Writers, 1870–1900
• Venice and the Cultural Imagination : 'This Strange Dream upon the Water'
• Victorian Social Activists’ Novels

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