ABSTRACT
The Story of a Modern Woman reveals a profound preoccupation with the wider social and economic issues so much under scrutiny, and, more especially, the role of women. The correspondence from Andrew Chatto and Windus concerning The Story of a Modern Woman has much in common with Mary Erie's publisher's comments in the novel. The Story of a Modern Woman certainly contains much discussion about marriage, offers of marriage, refusals of marriage, arranged marriages, extra-marital sex and even divorce. Many other short stories and novels by New Woman writers also centre on a heroine who attempts to reconcile quotidian constraints with her desire to create, whether in the domain of music, literature or the fine arts. Ella Hepworth Dixon, like many a New Woman writer, perhaps most notably Sarah Grand in The Heavenly Twins, again implies that the real moral inadequacies are not where they appear to be.
