Sidelights on the Feminine Temperament: Selected Short Stories (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781839542466)

In 1904 a collection of Ella Hepworth Dixon's short stories was published under the title One Doubtful Hour and Other Sidelights on the Feminine Temperament. Since then, in spite of several reprints of her much acclaimed, so-called 'New Woman' novel The Story of a Modern Woman (1894), most of Hepworth Dixon's 'clever modern tales', as The Times' critic described them, have remained out of print. The stories had all previously appeared during the preceding decade in various periodicals, some aimed at a primarily female readership such as the Lady's Pictorial, others at a wider, more general public, such as the Pall Mall Magazine and the Yellow Book.

This collection comprises the whole of One Doubtful Hour, as well as selected other stories, including those published in Oscar Wilde's Woman's World and those containing embryonic elements later re-worked into her celebrated novel and her less well-known play The Toyshop of the Heart (performed in 1908 but never published). The volume also includes a selection of non-fiction pieces, among which are contributions to a debate on 'Why Women are Ceasing to Marry'. A comprehensive introduction sets Hepworth Dixon and her work in the historical, literary and social context in which she thrived, and a critical commentary examines the changes she made between original publication and book form.