History of British Women's Writing, 1880-1920

The ranks of English women writers rose steeply in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, contributing to the era’s revolutionary social movements as well as to transforming literary genres in prose and poetry. The phenomena of ‘the new’ — ‘New Women’, ‘New Unionism’, ‘New Imperialism’, ‘New Ethics’, ‘New Critics’, ‘New Journalism’, ‘New Man’ — are this moment’s touchstones. This book tracks the period's new social phenomena and unfolds its distinctively modern modes of writing. It provides expert introductions amid new insights into women’s writing throughout the United Kingdom and around the globe. 

“This is the seventh of ten volumes in a series that aims to give an integrated picture of British women writers’ contribution to literature from the medieval period to the present day. … the most interesting things about this volume is its emphasis on how women’s writing from both the margins and the centre, from the local to the global, formed part of a wide cultural network of ideas and connections that contributed to turn-of-the-century feminism.” (Patricia Beesley, Modern Language Review, Vol. 113 (2), April, 2018)

Holly A. Laird is Frances W. O'Hornett Chair of Literature and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Tulsa, USA. She is author of Women Coauthors and numerous articles on Victorian and modern literature, culture, and theory.  She edited the prize-winning, international journal Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature for 18 years.