ABSTRACT
The ending of Sarah Grand's The Beth Book sees Beth and Arthur reuniting, suggesting the possibility of a mutual understanding between the New Woman and New Man. This chapter shows the George Gissing's The Odd Women and Grant Allen's The Type-Writer Girl shows men tentatively adopting New Manhood, only to abandon their relationship with a New Woman in favour of a conventional marriage with a Victorian angel in the house. While the chapter highlights the moral strength and resilience of the New Woman, it necessitates the retreat of the New Man. The New Men in The Type-Writer Girl and The Odd Women disappear from the narratives and retreat to marriages that are not only conventional, but are essentially mid-Victorian throwbacks. In an article on feminist community in The Type-Writer Girl, Brooke Cameron notes that New Women novels like this end with the dystopian because their heroines exceed the conventional plots and, as such, are still trying to find their ending.
