New Women
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, "new woman" novels reflected larger social debates over new occupations and votes for women. Plots of these novels often include: marriage as an economic and social (and sometimes loveless) contract; the rights of women to their own desires outside the bounds of family; and the defeat of oppressive conventions. Women depicted in these novels often resist traditional marital or social roles and forge new relationships of their own.
Women Doctors
Anne Elliot wrote several novels featuring strong-minded heroines occupying roles usually filled by men. This one features a female doctor.
Anna Marsden’s Experiment
The plot involves an "intrinsically masculine" heroine who supplements her small inherited in-come with her contributions to women’s journals. Rejected by her attractive male colleague in favor of a pretty but frivolous art student, Anna Marsden assumes the persona and clothes of a man, whereby she gains the friendship of the male colleague and the love of the art student. A copy of the author’s only book.
Career Girls
In this "new woman" novel, the tomboyish heroine has inherited money but, much to her friends’ bewilderment, chooses to work as a landscape gardener. Initially rejecting her suitor, she finally capitulates, but warns, "I must live my own life!"
Unconventional Lifestyles
Mrs. Kingscote was one of the first female novelists to attend Oxford University. This novel is about a couple who agree to divorce so that he can marry a rich woman and support the couple’s four children.
Out of Wedlock
Edith Ellis was the wife of Havelock Ellis, the writer of books on sexual science. In Seaweed, the deeply sensual heroine is married to a pious but paralyzed miner. At her husband’s insistence, she conceives and successfully produces a child with another man.