The Story of a Modern Woman

By Ella Hepworth Dixon

Book Overview

Ella Hepworth Dixon's The Story of a Modern Womanoriginally appeared in serial form in the women's weekly The Lady's Pictorial. Like Hepworth Dixon herself, the novel's heroine Mary Erle is a woman writer struggling to make her living as a journalist in the 1880s. Forced by her father's sudden death to support herself, Mary Erle turns to writing three-penny-a-line fiction, works that (as her editor insists) must have a ball in the first volume, a picnic and a parting in the second, and an opportune death in the third. This Broadview edition's rich selection of historical documents helps contextualize The Story of a Modern Womanin relation to contemporary debates about the "New Woman."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1551113805
• ISBN13: 9781551113807
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Broadview Press Inc
• Length: 295 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The New Woman is back!

I'm a great fan of the classic Victorian novel, and this fin de siècle novel (1894) reads just like one - except that romances go hopelessly wrong and tenderly raised young women have to go out and earn a living. On the sudden death of her father, Mary Earle finds herself scantily provided for by the great man of science. She turns first to Art, then to journalism, to support herself and her younger brother. Through hard work and determination, she becomes a professional - but happiness is more elusive. While some women in the story are crushed by the hypocrisy of Victorian-age men and mores, Mary Earle is a survivor. Her new morality is depicted as stronger and better than the old morality. Although the novel is written to make a point about Society vs. the New Woman, it's also an absorbing narrative, well written and full of moving scenes and vibrant characters. The excellent introduction is both readable and scholarly. And for students of the period there are appendices of related historical documents. Thanks go to Broadview for reprinting this book.