A Superfluous Woman

Aristocratic Jessamine Halliday, suffering a “splenetic seizure” brought on by high breeding, is prescribed a therapeutic break in the Scottish Highlands. While there, she falls in love with handsome crofter Colin Macgillvray and makes an indecent proposal by offering him the “unconditional surrender” of her body but refusing to give her hand in marriage. A Superfluous Woman is an audacious exploration of the fin-de-siècle preoccupation with race, class, and the sexual double standard. Unsurprisingly, Brooke’s novel caused outrage among critics. Campaigner W. T. Stead denounced it as “an immoral tale,” and The Times lamented its distinctly feminist message. This reaction, and Brooke’s boldness, ensured that it became one of the best-selling New Woman novels of the 1890s.

Using firsthand interviews, archival documents, and visual analysis, Superfluous Women explores the intersections between art, protest, and feminism in today's Ukraine.

Excerpt from A Superfluous Woman "Dying? H'm!" said the doctor. He was a short, square man with great shoulders; and he stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat, and with his legs a little apart; he had forgotten to turn down his trousers before coming into the room, so that a pair of large strong boots, much splashed with mud, planted themselves only too visibly upon the carpet. He was not a West End doctor, and had made his way to this West End mansion by short stages in omnibuses and by short stages on foot. His practice lay among the sores which devour the flesh of Lazarus. Most of his hours were spent in those hospitals where the maimed worker seeks a little respite from misery before he passes from the cruelty of the world, and much of his leisure in gratuitous labor among the fetid dens of the poor. He seemed in his own eyes to be as a gatherer who binds together perpetually fallen sheaves of blighted corn, and his constant fight with death had brought a grim look into his face. But not into his eyes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXVI. The sexes suspect each other. Even the heartiest sympathy falls short of sympathy in proportion as there is therein an admixture of good-natured tolerance. And much of the sympathy between sex and sex is no more than a purposed toleration of probable weakness little understood. There was a note in Jessamine's message pitched too high for Dr. Cornerstone's comprehension. Even his insight into her probable misery could not account for it, and it irritated him. "She can go away. She can break the tie. Let her free herself," said he. To those not within the delicate meshes of some difficulty action seems always possible. "It seems easy, doesn't it? The odd thing is that everybody's individual mess is a sort of charmed circle out of which they do not find it so simple to step," returned Carteret. "Shall you go?" "Yes. Hysteria and wretchedness are my business." It was getting dusk next day when Dr. Cornerstone found himself alone in the private sitting room of Lady Heriot. A single lamp, covered with a shade, served rather to add to the obscurity than to illumine it, but he saw that the room was furnished with every possible luxury. It gave him a sense of oppression to be there; the wretched hours spent therein by an unhappy soul burdened the atmosphere. There seemed no escaping the infection; the breath sucked it in, and it lay heavy on the heart. He sat down to await her coming; he thought of her as of one who had left his guidance to learn life's merciless lesson by herself. Some deep experience she had conned alone. But that, he said, is life. And here, after ten years, he sat on her hearth watching the light stealing from the window and giving place to shadows, and the lamp glowing more and more to a ruby redness....

Journal of a Superfluous Woman: A Collection of Essays documents a woman's struggle to understand life and her place in it. Her experience with breast cancer forms the catalyst for an examination of conscience--a looking back in order that she might move forward. These essays attempt to put into perspective childhood memories, race, religion, relationships, career choices, training versus education, illness, death, and a perception that the world still undervalues the role of the unwed and childless. It is said that she who writes about herself and her time writes about all people for all time. Here, I. R. King offers herself as a metaphor through which some of life's foibles and paradoxes can be examined in the quest for improvement. Journal of A Superfluous Woman: A Collection of Essays is a journey of reflection and introspection. It is a quest for the unknown and the unknowable, an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, and a search for meaning, purpose, and wholeness. The recognition that duality is imbedded in the depths of reality forms the basis for creating peace, within and without, and for moving toward balance, equipoise, and love.

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