Novel 336: Elizabeth Robins, George Mandeville’s Husband
A fastidious man and his sensitive daughter live uncomfortably with their wife/mother, a selfish, second-rate novelist.
Elizabeth Robins (1862-1952) was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised by her grandmother in Zanesville, Ohio. Her mother, an opera singer, went mad; her husband, an actor, drowned himself. She worked as an actress first in America, then moved to London and established herself as a leading lady in the plays of Ibsen. In the twentieth century she became a prominent supporter of women’s suffrage. Amid all this, she found time to write several novels, among them this tragi-comic portrait of selfish literary pretense.
“A most excellent and powerful piece of work.” Athenaeum, August 25, 1894
The author is “evidently a literary impressionist who can succeed brilliantly in throwing off a vivid and dramatic conception of a group that interests him.” Spectator, August 4, 1894
A contrasting view:
“Surprisingly clever in its way, being direct and simple” but “exaggerated”: “the tables are turned on the ‘new woman’ with a vengeance, and with a degree of hot-headed malice and a lack of logic worthy of the ‘new woman’ herself in her newest aspect.” New York Times, August 6, 1894
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