Let’s be clear. We are all equal under the law. However, even in these more modern times that is not an absolute and still remains a distant ambition for many. In the days when Britain ruled the waves and bestrode the world as its policeman and plunderer in chief it also subjugated half of its own people to second class status. Women were chattel and property. There were some exceptions based on wealth and birthright but for the overwhelming majority your lot was to fall in with the rules and do as you were told. Many did.But whilst male society sought to place obstacles in the path to equality, it could not deny their literary talents, which many times they circumvented by using male pseudonyms. However, the soaring sales of magazines and periodicals during the Victorian Age meant they had voracious appetites for literature, whatever the sex of its gender.Dozens of authors appeared to fill the need. Narratives had new ideas. Characters were emboldened by societal changes and the female voice taking responsibility.The women included here are talents that dazzle. Put them up against anyone and they rise to the top. Whether they remain with an avid readership today or faded to obscurity with the passing of the times their quality remains undimmed. 1 - Women of Wonder - Affairs - An Introduction2 - The Storm by Kate Chopin3 - From the Dead by Edith Nesbit4 - Souls Belated by Edith Wharton5 - The Legacy by Virginia Woolf6 - The Pleasant Husband by Marjorie Bowen7 - Lucy Wren by Ada Radford8 - Lena Wrace by May Sinclair9 - The Difference by Ellen Glasgow10 - Behind the Curtain by Gertrude Barrows Bennett writing as Francis Stevens11 - The Kiss by Kate Chopin
During the Victorian era the publishing of magazines and periodicals accelerated at a phenomenal rate. This really was mass market publishing to a hungry audience eager for literary sustenance. Many of our greatest authors contributed and expanded their reach whilst many fledging authors also found a ready source for their nascent works and careers.Amongst the very many was 'The Yellow Book'. Although titled as 'An Illustrated Quarterly' it was sold as a cloth-bound hardback and within were short stories, essays, poetry, illustrations and portraits. It was edited by the American author Henry Harland, who also contributed, and its art editor was no less that the formidable Aubrey Beardsley, the enfant terrible of illustration.Its yellow cover and name gave it an association with the risqué and erotic yellow covered works published in France. It was a visual shorthand for ideas that would push many boundaries of Society to more open interpretations. Being complete in each volume and slightly aloof it stayed away from serialised fiction and advertisements. Within each lavishly illustrated edition were literary offerings that included works by such luminaries as Henry James, H G Wells, W B Yeats, Edith Nesbit, George Gissing and many others from the ascetic and decadent movements of the time. The other notable inclusion was women both as contributors and amongst its editing staff, which was at odds with the then patriarchal gender norms. Although it only survived for 13 issues its reach and influence were second to none.
