Femininity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature and Society

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Emelyne Godfrey

      Pages 1-11

3. ‘A Door Open, A Door Shut’

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

      PDF

   2. On the Street

      • Emelyne Godfrey

      Pages 15-25

   3. Danger en Route

      • Emelyne Godfrey

      Pages 26-32

   4. Behind Closed Doors in Mona Caird’s The Wing of Azrael (1889)

      • Emelyne Godfrey

      Pages 33-63

4. Fighting for Emancipation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-65

      PDF

   2. Elizabeth Robins’s The Convert

      • Emelyne Godfrey

      Pages 67-85

   3. The Last Heroine Left?

      • Emelyne Godfrey

      Pages 86-106

5. The Pre-War Female Gaze

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 107-107

      PDF

   2. Elizabeth Robins and the ‘White Slave Trade’ Panic

      • Emelyne Godfrey

      Pages 109-131

   3. Read My Lips

      • Emelyne Godfrey

      Pages 132-155

   4. Conclusion

      • Emelyne Godfrey

      Pages 156-157

6. Back Matter

   Pages 158-192

   PDF

This exploration into the development of women's self-defence from 1850 to 1914 features major writers, including H.G. Wells, Elizabeth Robins and Richard Marsh, and encompasses an unusually wide-ranging number of subjects from hatpin crimes to the development of martial arts for women.

• English literature
• Victorian era
• women
• British and Irish Literature

"Femininity, Crime and Self-Defense is a superb addition to New Woman studies and a potential rich resource for scholars in late-Victorian and Edwardian literary scholarship." - Lena Wånggren, University of Edinburgh, UK

"Opening up new areas for research in the fields of women's history, but also detective fiction and urban studies, this book's major contribution to Victorian and Edwardian studies is in unsettling the reader's perceptions, insisting that we look again at what we think we already know." - Carolyn Oulton, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK

EMELYNE GODFREY graduated with a Ph.D. in English from Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. A freelance writer and researcher, she writes academic articles, dictionary and encyclopaedia entries and poetry, and gives lectures to societies. She is a regular contributor to History Today and is the Publicity Officer for the H.G. Wells Society.

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