Sammendrag
The last decade of the 19th century was a period of great cultural changes in Britain, and especially the role of women was topic of much debate. The New Woman movement was a literary branch that sprang from women's fight for equal rights. New Woman writers were concerned with writing about and for women in a way that opposed much of earlier Victorian fiction. They dealt with issues such as female sexuality, education and work for women, divorce, motherhood and free unions. One of the most debated of the New Woman writers was George Egerton. Her literary debut, 'Keynotes'(1893), was a great succes de scandal at the time.
In my thesis I examine the literary fate of George Egerton as New Woman writer, and try to shed some light on how her career was influenced by cultural currents and events that took place at the time. Especially the trial against Oscar Wilde, and the restrictions in the literary marketplace that followed, had great significance for Egerton and her fellow New Woman colleagues.
New Woman writers have been almost totally forgotten by literary historians throughout the 20th century, and I attempt to point at some explanations why writers who were so much debated in their own time have been left out of literary chronicles for such a long time.