Feminine Attitudes In The Nineteenth Century

A comprehensive survey of Victorian woman including chapters on The Romantic ’30s, the Sentimental ’40s, the Perfect Lady of the ’50s, the Revolting ’60s, the Ornamental ’70s, the Symbolic ’80s, and the Prude’s Progress in the ’90s.

In the good old days of Victorian melodrama it was customary for the Betrayed to lay her offspring on the Villain’s doorstep, and then rush blindly into the snowstorm. As you, morally at least, are responsible for this book, it is fitting that your name should stand here in a white sheet. … For me, the snowstorm. . . .

It was you who led me into committing one of the niost indiscreet forms of writing, the explanatory. As a nation we dislike being explained, and it is specially dangerous to explain the Feminine mind; there is always the risk of being understood. However, the Nineteenth Century cannot now defend itself, and the Victorians are considered fair game. Their merits are apt to be overlooked, and I have therefore tried to indicate some of those gifts with which the average woman was adorned, making it the great Feminine Century in History. It is high time that someone threw at her a bouquet or two. Here is mine.