Wedlock

by George Egerton

A release in celebration of World Women's day on March 8 2013.

George Egerton's Wedlock is a pioneering work of 19th Century female writing. First published in 1893, it is a story that set about detonating contemporary ideas of female purity, as well as helping to usher in modernism with its focus on interior life and refusal to adhere to contemporary writing standards. It has with a Dostoyevskian tang: redemption in madness and, eventually, a wonderful sense of relief.

With a new, dazzling introduction by our very own Eimear McBride, plus a variety of other interesting titbits (from a small snapshot of the trailblazing Egerton’s life – a woman, it seemed, who had more affairs than Casanova – to two vitriolic articles from stuffy journalists of the period), for the price of a Mars Bar you can take a taste of the strange, dated, and rather glorious work of a writer who paved the way for not only a new generation of women writers and social reformers, but also for the modernist movement. James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy – they all owe a debt to Egerton; and we are proud, in our own small way, of helping to make sure she’s not forgotten.

This special Galley Beggar Press edition comes with an introduction from our own new female-purity-detonating writer Eimear McBride, a short biography of Egerton's remarkable life and End Notes looking at the phenomenon of the "new woman" - and its most strident critics.

Genres: 19th Century

48 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 6, 2013

About the author

Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright (born Mary Elizabeth Annie Dunne; 14 December 1859 — 12 August 1945), better known by her pen name George Egerton, (pronounced Edg'er-ton) was a "New Woman" writer and feminist. Widely considered to be one of the most important of the "New Woman" writers of the nineteenth century fin de siecle, she was a friend of George Bernard Shaw, Ellen Terry and J.M. Barrie.

Egerton's stylistic innovations, often termed "proto-modernist" by literary scholars, and her often radical and feminist subject matter[4] have ensured that her fiction continues to generate academic interest in America and Britain. Egerton's experimentation with form and content anticipated the high modernism of writers like James Joyce and D H Lawrence, and Egerton's The Wheel of God often reads as a sort of rudimentary template for Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Thomas Hardy acknowledged the influence of Egerton's work on his own, in particular on the construction of his "New Woman" character, Sue Bridehead, in Jude the Obscure. Perhaps most notably, Holbrook Jackson credits Egerton with the first mention of Friedrich Nietzsche in English literature (she refers to Nietzsche in Keynotes in 1893, three years before the first of Nietzsche's works was translated into English).

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Egerton is the pen name of Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright. She was born in Australia and spent early years there and in New Zealand, Chile and Ireland. She identified herself as Irish. She spent time in New York and Norway. Egerton married three times and moved in literary circles. She was the first person to translate Knut Hamsun into English. She has been credited with being the first person to mention Nietzsche in English Literature; in her book of short stories and essays, Keynotes, she mentions Nietzsche. This was in 1893, three years before he was translated into English. Her novel The Wheel of God was an influence on Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Egerton also influenced Hardy who used her when creating the character of Sue Bridehead in Jude the Obscure. There was a breadth to Egerton’s learning and reading which is impressive and she packed a great deal into her early years.
Egerton was one of those writers who were part of the “New Woman” movement; a term invented by Sarah Grand, but taken up by others and holding ideas that women might want to do unheard of things like vote, get educated, have a career and even have sexual desire. She had work published in The Yellow Book and Wedlock dates from 1894. It is more a short story than novella and also appears in one of her collections. I can do no better at this point than copy the GR outline of some of the reactions at the time;
“Neurotic and repulsive”
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine

“A deliberate outrage”
Athenaem

“Crazy and offensive drivel”
Saturday Review

Encouraging isn’t it! The title gives an indication; it is not titled marriage, but wedlock with the emphasis on lock. It has been described as proto-modernist and there is a fluidity in the narration which passes easily between unnamed characters. The plot is simple Susan Jones lives with her husband and his three children from a previous marriage (today that would point towards divorce, then death would most likely be the reason). Susan has a child born out of wedlock; the reason she married her husband is because he promised that her child would be able to join the family rather than live with Susan’s sister. This promise he has broken and Susan has descended into despair and alcoholism and she resents her husband’s children. Then she discovers, quite by accident that her daughter is dying and her husband has been intercepting letters and a telegram informing her. There is no happy ending.
The ending is horrific and delivered in a rather gothic way. It was published in the same year as Jude the Obscure, but earlier in the year. The serialisation of Jude did not start until December. There is one very striking similarity, so striking that it makes me think that Hardy must have been influenced by this.
The working class slang is hard work at times and it feels a little forced. The shock engendered in the reader is still there today; it must have been much sharper when it was written. The work explores power and control and the nature of matrimony, broken promises, depression and apathy and its effects.
Egerton’s particular interest was to explore what she saw as the wilder and more savage spirit in women which society tried to tame; she saw the structures of marriage and the family as being part of the problem. There is some contradictoriness in her views, but she is a fascinating character and far too little known.

[mia :•) · Rating 3 out of 5]

important and what not (that girlboss moment when you kill all your step kids)