The Woman Who Did - Softcover

Allen, Grant

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1519299109 ISBN 13: 9781519299109

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

Herminia Barton, the Cambridge-educated daughter of a clergyman, frees herself from her parents' influence, moves to London and starts living alone. As she is not a woman of independent means, she starts working as a teacher. When she meets and falls in love with Alan Merrick, a lawyer, she suggests they live together without getting married. Reluctantly, he agrees, and the couple move to Italy. There, in Florence, Merrick dies of typhoid before their daughter Dolores is born. Legal technicalities and the fact that the couple were not married prevent Herminia from inheriting any of Merrick's money. Dreaming of being a role model for Dolores and her friends, Herminia returns to England and raises her daughter as a single mother. She wants to show the younger generation that even as a woman there is something one can do about the unfair position of women in society—a small step maybe, but with more and larger steps to follow soon. However, Dolores turns out to be ashamed of her mother's unmarried state and gradually turns against her. Eventually, Herminia chooses to make a huge sacrifice for her daughter's benefit and commits suicide.

About this title

Review:

"Ruddick's new edition of The Woman Who Did makes a wonderful addition to Broadview's growing list of key fin de siecle texts. Placing Grant Allen's polemical short novel in the context both of his career as a public intellectual and of ongoing debates about sex, marriage, gender, and eugenics, the introduction and selected primary sources help explain the stakes behind the uproar that surrounded the novel's publication. The supplementary material on marriage debates of the 1880s and 1890s, as well as the selections from initial reviews of the novel, are particularly helpful in this regard. A splendid resource for those interested in the Victorian fin de siecle, and the nineteenth-century Woman Question."--Kathy Alexis Psomiades

"This meticulously edited reprint of Grant Allen's notorious 1895 novel is an important and very welcome addition to Broadview Press's increasingly rich library of once-popular eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts by women that have, for many years now, languished in archives accessible only to scholars. Nicholas Ruddick's thoughtful introduction and the appendices--which include contemporary reviews, source materials, excerpts from the Marriage Debate, 1888-1895, and key non-fiction prose writings by Grant Allen--will be invaluable resources."--Ann L. Ardis

"Ruddick's new edition of The Woman Who Did makes a wonderful addition to Broadview's growing list of key fin de siecle texts. Placing Grant Allen's polemical short novel in the context both of his career as a public intellectual and of ongoing debates about sex, marriage, gender, and eugenics, the introduction and selected primary sources help explain the stakes behind the uproar that surrounded the novel's publication. The supplementary material on marriage debates of the 1880s and 1890s, as well as the selections from initial reviews of the novel, are particularly helpful in this regard. A splendid resource for those interested in the Victorian fin de siecle, and the nineteenth-century Woman Question." -- Kathy Alexis Psomiades, Duke University

"This meticulously edited reprint of Grant Allen's notorious 1895 novel is an important and very welcome addition to Broadview Press's increasingly rich library of once-popular eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts by women that have, for many years now, languished in archives accessible only to scholars. Nicholas Ruddick's thoughtful introduction and the appendices--which include contemporary reviews, source materials, excerpts from the Marriage Debate, 1888-1895, and key non-fiction prose writings by Grant Allen--will be invaluable resources." -- Ann L. Ardis, University of Delaware

"Ruddick's new edition of The Woman Who Did makes a wonderful addition to Broadview's growing list of key fin de siecle texts. Placing Grant Allen's polemical short novel in the context both of his career as a public intellectual and of ongoing debates about sex, marriage, gender, and eugenics, the introduction and selected primary sources help explain the stakes behind the uproar that surrounded the novel's publication. The supplementary material on marriage debates of the 1880s and 1890s, as well as the selections from initial reviews of the novel, are particularly helpful in this regard. A splendid resource for those interested in the Victorian fin de siecle, and the nineteenth-century Woman Question." -- Kathy Alexis Psomiades, Duke University

"This meticulously edited reprint of Grant Allen's notorious 1895 novel is an important and very welcome addition to Broadview Press's increasingly rich library of once-popular eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts by women that have, for many years now, languished in archives accessible only to scholars. Nicholas Ruddick's thoughtful introduction and the appendices--which include contemporary reviews, source materials, excerpts from the Marriage Debate, 1888-1895, and key non-fiction prose writings by Grant Allen--will be invaluable resources." -- Ann L. Ardis, University of Delaware

From the Back Cover:

The controversial subject matter of Grant Allen's novel, The Woman Who Did, made it a major bestseller in 1895. It tells the story of Herminia Barton, a university-educated New Woman who, because of her belief that marriage oppresses women, refuses to marry her lover even though she shares his bed and bears his child. Her ideals come into disastrous conflict with intensely patriarchal late Victorian England. Indeed, Allen intended his novel to shock readers into a serious exploration of some of the major issues in fin de siecle sexual politics, issues that he himself, in various periodical articles under the rubric of the "Woman Question," had played a leading role in opening up to public debate.

This Broadview edition contains a critical introduction as well as a rich selection of appendices which include excerpts from Allen's writings on women, sex, and marriage; contemporary writings on the "Sex Problem"; documents pertaining to the Marriage Debate; contemporary responses to the novel; and excerpts from two parodies of the novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1519299109
• ISBN 13: 9781519299109
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 116