Femininity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature and Society: From Dagger-Fans to Suffragettes [Hardcover]

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.List of Figures Acknowledgments A Note on the Text Abbreviations Introduction PART I: 'A DOOR OPEN, A DOOR SHUT' On the Street Danger en Route Behind Closed Doors: Bogey-Husbands in Disguise: Mona Caird's The Wing of Azrael (1889) PART II: FIGHTING FOR EMANCIPATION Elizabeth Robins' The Convert The Last Heroine Left? PART III: THE PRE-WAR FEMALE GAZE 'Where Are You Going To, My Pretty Maid?': Elizabeth Robins on White Slavery Read My Lips Bibliography Index

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 W?nggren, 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.