Published in 1893, George Egerton’s

was an immediate success, ushering in a new era of feminist fiction at the

. “Egerton” was the pen-name for Mary Chavelita Dunne Bight and

was her first work of short stories published with the Bodley Head, under the metorship of Charles Elkin Mathews and John Lane. Egerton had also sent the collection to William Heinmann for consideration, but would not be deterred when the work was sent back with an offensive rejection letter: “The stories may be many things,” she writes, “but I’m damned if they are mediocre” (qtd in Stetz, 1982, p. 28). Egerton was right to insist that her work was unique and worthy of publication. As Laura Marholm Hansson notes, in her review of

(1896),

…

1723 words

Citation: Cameron, Sally Brooke. "Keynotes". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 April 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38882, accessed 23 November 2024.]