New Woman Gothic: Reconfigurations of Distress

The controversial and compelling figure of the New Woman in late Victorian fiction has garnered extensive scholarly attention, but rarely has she been investigated through the fascinating lens of the Gothic. Yet the presence of sinister Gothic elements is so widespread in the generally realisitic British novels that the term "New Woman Gothic" readily comes to mind. Drawing from and reworking Gothic conventions of Romantic and later literature, the New Woman version is marshaled during this tumultuous cultural moment of gender anxieties either to defend or revile the complex individual who sought improvements in educational, marital, and professional realms.