Gender and Genre: Mary Cholmondeley Reconsidered (PDF)

Mary Cholmondeley was one of the best-selling 'New Woman' writers of the late nineteenth century, yet her perceived reluctance to engage directly with political and feminist issues has meant that she has also been one of the most overlooked. This important new collection of essays challenges that critical misconception, revisiting her work and examining the ways in which her writing subtly explored the principles of social change. Cholmondeley's novels voiced the ideas of a new feminist agenda, developing the concept of the 'New Man' alongside that of the 'New Woman' and deeply questioning the nature of female sexuality within a male-dominated society. This book provides a necessary critical reappraisal of one of the most challenging and subversive of nineteenth-century women writers. Whilst the bulk of writing on Mary Cholmondeley has focused on her most famous novel, Red Pottage, these essays cover a wide range of her works including short fiction and longer texts that have previously received little or no critical attention. This is the first time that a collection of essays on Cholmondeley has been drawn together within one book, and represents the rekindling of academic interest in a writer whose significant position within late Victorian and early Modernist writing is only now beginning to be recognized by scholars and critics of the field.