ABSTRACT
In many ways, Ella Hepworth Dixon personifies the conflicting interests and contradictions at the heart both of the New Woman phenomenon and the world of journalism in which she spent the whole of her life. Whilst remaining single and childless, she was neither a 'self-assertive, heartless, sexless thing' nor a febrile bag of nerves, much less a source of pity or ridicule. In the chapter, the author shows that rather than being merely a New Woman, Ella Hepworth Dixon was very much a Modern Woman. She may not have binned for her faith, and for this reason may attract the scorn of more engaged feminists. She does appear to have maintained the course she set herself and was admirably able to fulfil the ambitions expressed by the heroine of her novel 'to make her way in the world and compete with men'.
