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New Woman Fiction (2) Gender and Sexuality


The Story of an African Farm (1883) heralded the advent of New Woman fiction eleven years before the New Woman was named. An immediate bestseller, the book made Olive Schreiner famous overnight, publicizing feminist ideas to a diverse readership, with one working-class woman saying that ‘I think there is hundreds of women what feels like that but can’t speak it, but she could speak what we feel’. Constituting the most spectacular case, in Victorian writing at least, of female teenage rebellion stifled by anorexia nervosa, its heroine Lyndall enabled Schreiner to introduce into narrative literature many of the feminist themes which, a decade later, would come to represent New Woman fiction generally.

Volume Contents

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    Front Matter
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    Introduction By Ann Heilmann
  • Gender Socialization
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      'Lyndall' in The Story of an African Farm (London: Collins, 1959; first published 1883), chap. 17, pp. 166-82 By Olive Schreiner
    • 'A Psychological Moment at Three Periods' in Discords (London: Lane, 1894), pp. 1-66 By George Egerton; Mary Chavelita Dunne
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        I
        The Child
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        II
        The Girl
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        III
        The Woman
  • Female Sexuality and Free Love
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      'Lyndall’s Stranger' in The Story of an African Farm (London: Collins, 1959; first published 1883), chap. 22, pp. 216-24 By Olive Schreiner
    • 'The Fate of the Ideal' and 'The Unideal Tested', in The Odd Women (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, [1907]; first published 1893), chaps. 25-26, pp. 370-404 By George Gissing
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        Chapter XXV
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        Chapter XXVI
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      'A Cross Line' in Keynotes (London: Lane, 1893), pp. 1-36 By George Egerton
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      She-Notes: Punch, vol. 56 (10 March 1894), p. 109 By Borgia Smudgiton
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      She-Notes: Punch, vol. 106 (17 March, 1894), p. 129 By Borgia Smudgiton
    • [From] The Woman who Did (London: Lane, 1895), chaps. 3, 6-7, pp. 24-46, 68-90 By Grant Allen
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        Chapter III
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        Chapter VI
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        Chapter VII
    • [From] The Beth Book (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1994; first published 1893), chaps. 26-27, pp. 235-63 By Sarah Grand
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        Chapter XXVI
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        Chapter XXVII
    • [From] The Image Breakers (London: Heinemann, 1900), chaps. 7-8, pp. 131-69 By Gertrude Dix
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        Chapter VII
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        Chapter VIII
  • Deconstructing/Reconstructing Gender and Sexuality: Cross-Dressing and Masquerade
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      'Gregory’s Womanhood' in The Story of an African Farm (London: Collins, 1959; first published 1883), chap. 25, pp.245-65 By Olive Schreiner
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      [From] The Heavenly Twins (London: Heinemann, 1908; first published 1893), vol. 2, bk 4, chap. 15, pp. 441-62 By Sarah Grand
    • [From] Gloriana; or, The Revolution of 1900 (London: Henry & Co., 1890), bk 2, chaps. 1-2, and bk 3, chap. 10, pp. 116-41, 345-9 By Lady Florence Dixie
      • Book II
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          Chapter I
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          Chapter II
      • Book III
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          Chapter X
  • Anti-Feminist New Woman Fiction
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      'Woman’s England' in The Revolt of Man (London: Collins, [1896]; first published 1882), chap. 6, pp. 92-118 By Walter Besant
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      'At the Excelsior' in The New Woman: In Haste and at Leisure (New York: Maerriam, 1895), chap. 4, pp. 41-55 By Eliza Lynn Linton
  • The Dream Comes True: Utopia
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      'Three Dreams in a Desert' in Dreams (London: Unwin, 1909; first published 1890), pp. 67-85 By Olive Schreiner
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      'The Sunlight lay Across my Bed' in Dreams (London: Unwin, 1909; first published 1890), pp. 133-82 By Olive Schreiner