New Woman Writers, Authority and the Body

This collection of essays contributes to scholarship on the emerging voices of women writers during the fin de siècle. These â oeNew Womanâ writers created a distinctly different body of literature that reflected their concerns about womenâ (TM)s limited role in society. The essays cover a range of authors, shedding light on the ways New Woman texts also often offer new and progressive portrayals of womenâ (TM)s authority as connected to strong physical bodies. These scholars highlight how New Woman endings re-envision the marriage plot, self-destruction and even empowerment through pain. Additionally they help scholars, instructors and students contextualize the New Woman writers in terms of the Womenâ (TM)s Movement, nineteenth-century laws related to marriage, Darwinian theory, athletics for women, the New Womanâ (TM)s navigation of urban life and even Jack the Ripper.