Overview

This book is concerned with the fiction and drama of the period, the poetry having been the subject of a separate book in the Writers and their Work series. Chapter one provides an overview of the women's movement between 1880-1919, and considers the diversity of feminist and female identities and lifestyles. The second chapter considers the representation of the woman artist in the context of debates on literary value and its relationship to gender and genre. Chapter three considers texts by a number of women writers, including novels and short stories, with a focus on the themes of motherhood, sexuality, eugenics, and imperialism. The final chapter extends the fin de siècle period in order to look and suffrage and other drama, with a focus on the leading woman playwright of the Edwardian ere, Elizabeth Robbins. The dramatic expression of themes addressed in the previous chapters is further explored here, especially motherhood and the emergence of women from sexual and domestic dependency.