Daughters of Decadence [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION When we think of the literature of the fin de siecle, the writers who come most readily to mind are men. Whether they are the aesthetes and decadents who drank absinthe on the Wilde side, or strolled down Piccadilly with lilies in their hands; the adventurers who described the search for King Solomon's mines or the journey into an exotic heart of darkness; the essayists who contemplated modem life from the windows of the Savile Club; or the visionaries who championed sexual freedom, the celebrated artists of the 1890s do not include women. Yet for feminist thinkers and writers, the fin de siecle was also a period of exploration and experiment. Recalling the first London production of Ibsen's A Doll's House in 1889, Edith Lees described how women in the audience, including Olive Schreiner and Eleanor Marx, lingered after the play, 'breathless with excitement. . . We were restive and impetuous and almost savage in our arguments. This was either the end of the world or the beginning of a new world for women. What did it mean? Was there hope or despair in the banging of that door? Was it life or death for women? Was it joy. or sorrow for men? Was it revelation or disaster?'^ Not only as heroines of drama, but alsó as competitors in the marketplace, women were a major presence in the new literary world of the 1880s and 1890s. They were writing