ABSTRACT
In 1890s, British journalists frequently commented on the scarcity of female playwrights. The dominant narrative of the female playwright thus changed considerably during the 1890s. Commercial success made celebrities of some and inspired many others to try their hand at dramatic authorship. A number of female playwrights had actually become both rich and famous through their success in the theatre. Access to the profession of the playwright “was controlled through the masculine domains of theatre management, law, journalism and men’s clubs”. The remarkable rise in the number of women who had plays staged in the final decade of the nineteenth century and the striking success of some of them instead led to the woman playwright becoming an object of interest for the periodical press. Contradictory statements are best understood as responses to the intense and in themselves conflicting pressures female playwrights were subject to at the end of the nineteenth century.
