Marie Louise Roberts, Disruptive Acts. The New Woman in Fin-de-Siècle France, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2002, 353 p., £ 24.50

2005 ◽  
Vol 52-2 (2) ◽  
pp. 243
Author(s):  
Nicole Edelman
Author(s):  
Matthew L. Reznicek

Katherine Cecil Thurston’s 1910 novel, Max, explores the bohemian Paris of the fin-de-siècle through the eyes of a young artist newly arrived from Russia. This young man is, however, actually a young princess in disguise, trying to escape an abusive marriage. Through the use of disguise and the New Woman figure of the female-to-male transvestite, this novel represents Paris through two competing genres: the masculine adventure narrative and the female romance.


Author(s):  
Lena Wånggren

This sixth chapter concludes the monograph by examining the figure of the New Woman detective and the specific technologies of detection employed. While women could not enter the British police force until well into the twentieth century, female detectives had been a part of British crime and detective fiction since the 1860s, culminating in the 1890s with the rise of New Woman detective. Mapping the literary trope of the New Woman detective, and the part played by modern technologies in these narratives, the chapter considers the nature of forensic evidence and the gendered use of technologies in producing this knowledge. Reading M. McDonnell Bodkin’s Dora Myrl, the Lady Detective (1900), the chapter considers New Woman detective fiction as a culmination of the New Woman’s use of technologies at the fin de siècle.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document