Recent years have seen a rennaissance of scholarly interest in the fin-de-siécle fiction of the New Woman. New Woman Strategies offers a new approach to the subject by focusing on the discursive strategies and revisionist aesthetics of the genre in the writings of three of its key exponents: Sarah Grand (1854-1943), Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) and Mona Caird (1854-1932). The study explores how each writer drew on, mimicked, feminized and ultimately transformed traditional literary and cultural tropes and paradigms: feminity, allegory and mythology.

First published in 1897, The Beth Book – Being a Study from the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius, is a semi-autobiographical novel offering a portrait of the artist as a young woman. Grand’s compelling story recounts in vivid detail the childhood of her young heroine, Beth, a spirited and intelligent girl who challenges the limitations of provincial life in Ireland and Yorkshire. Without the benefit of formal education, Beth must make her own way through adolescence, contending with a violent mother and an alcoholic father. With little money to go round, Beth often goes without so that her brothers might be raised as gentlemen, thus giving her an early introduction to sexual inequality. Even in girlhood Beth challenges gender expectations, dressing as a boy and poaching rabbits for the family dinner table. Like Grand herself, Beth makes an early marriage to escape her unhappy childhood, becoming the wife of philandering doctor, Daniel Maclure. Disillusion soon turns to defiance, as Beth recreates herself as a woman of genius, with her rousing refrain of “I shall succeed!” After escaping to a room of her own, Beth becomes a New Woman, setting a high standard both for herself and for other women. Grand’s extraordinary recall of childhood emotions, avoiding Victorian sentimentality, makes The Beth Book a convincing and captivating chronicle of female adolescence. The coming of age and sexual awakening of Beth broadens into a consideration of wider social issues, such as marital violence, vivisection, and the sexual double standard. The Beth Book deserves to be seen as a classic of the Victorian age. This new edition, the first for almost twenty years, includes: A critical introduction by Jenny Bourne Taylor Explanatory footnotes Bibliography Contemporary reviews A selection of other writings by and about Sarah Grand

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Nestlings" (A Collection of Poems) by Ella Fraser Weller. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

A fascinating exploration of gender issues and feminist agendas of the New Woman movement of the late 1800s