THE “MODERN SPINSTER'S LOT” AND FEMALE SEXUALITY IN ELLA HEPWORTH DIXON'S ONE DOUBTFUL HOUR

Abstract

This article sets out to contextualize Ella Hepworth Dixon's production of short stories in relation to the women's magazines for which she wrote and what they had to say about the modern phenomenon of the spinster. The author argues that attitudes towards female sexuality, particularly in London Bohemian circles, were changing, though the decline of the chaperon and the relaxation of some rules around female sexual behaviour certainly did not mean that young women could be as liberated as they liked. Dixon's work is also considered in relation to the growing popularity of the short story collection with New Woman themes at the turn of the century. Representations of female sexual behaviour and modern single women in “One Doubtful Hour”, “The World's Slow Stain” and “The Sweet o’ the Year” from her collection One Doubtful Hour and Other Side-Lights on the Feminine Temperament (1904) are examined in relation to other New Woman short stories of the 1890s and early 1900s.