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John Sutherland described Ella Hepworth Dixon’s The Story of a Modern Woman as “the greatest unread novel of female struggle of the century”. Published in 1894, it is in Dixon’s own words “a somewhat gloomy study of the struggles of a girl alone in the world and earning her own living”. When her father dies, Mary Erle is left to fend for herself without guidance or money. She initially follows her dream of studying at the Central London School of Art, only to repeatedly fail entry to the Royal Academy. She instead tries her hand at hack writing, churning out magazine articles and penny novels. She is given little latitude to employ any artistic vision, as the publisher demands books that will be accepted by Mudie’s circulating library. Mary cannot understand why her fiction must be bowdlerised so as not to offend her readers, when the most sensational details of divorce cases are reported in the daily newspapers. Presumably, her readers are mainly women, whereas men would be more likely to read the lurid newspaper articles and disseminate a sanitised version deemed suitable for delicate feminine ears. ...

Mary Augusta Ward (1851-1920) is one of the many intriguing Victorian personalities who make the nineteenth century such a perfect place for academic rummaging. John Sutherland’s biography manages to successfully evaluate both the writer and the woman, with just the right balance between it being scholarly and accessible. Ward was born in Hobart, Tasmania into a veritable Victorian dynasty: the Arnolds. Her grandfather was the infamous Dr Thomas Arnold of Rugby and her uncle was Matthew Arnold, affectionately known as Uncle Matt. Dr Arnold had an astonishingly strong work ethic, much parodied by Lytton Strachey in Eminent Victorians, and this both inspired and alarmed his family. Although he rather undermined his own teachings by dying at the age of just 47, he continued to exert a powerful influence over the other Arnolds. According to Sutherland, his “dead but inextinguishable presence loomed over their subsequent lives like some deity in a Greek tragedy.” ...

Having long been a firm advocate of Lady Audley’s Secret and defended it against charges of anti-feminism, I am delighted to discover that Mary Elizabeth Braddon has reworked some of its themes in her later novel, Thou Art the Man. Originally published in 1894, this work takes account of the prevailing discourses on heredity, degeneration and madness. This time, however, it is the male characters who are shown to be degenerate, and the female heroines turn detective in order to unmask the villain. ...

I think Trollope is just showing off. Apparently, he wrote Dr Wortle’s School (1881) in just three weeks. Admittedly, it’s a fairly slim volume, but even so, he’s still a pesky overachiever. The eponymous Doctor runs a successful private school and enjoys a good reputation in the fictional county of Broughtonshire. His life is severely disrupted, however, by the arrival of a new schoolmaster, Mr Peacocke, and his beautiful American wife. Although outwardly a perfectly respectable, yet enigmatic, couple, the appearance of a stranger at the school gates heralds the revelation that Mrs Peacocke is a bigamist. Now, I’m not spoiling anything here, as Trollope ruins this plot element himself in the opening pages. He wanted to avoid the plot-driven style of the sensation novel and instead focus on the psychological drama. ...

Sarah Grand’s Ideala is one of the early New Woman novels. The eponymous heroine grapples with the decision of whether to leave her domineering and adulterous husband for another man, or to become an elective singleton and reject the need for a normative relationship. The story is narrated by her friend Lord Dawne, who struggles to understand her need to question her role in society. He cannot understand why she would renounce the respectability and stability of marriage, but Ideala finds greater meaning in performing charitable works, writing poetry, and experiencing other cultures. ...

I’m currently enjoying something of a Trollope Fest. This is a rather indulgent activity, as really I should be focusing on some women novelists. In my defence, I was reliably informed that The Vicar of Bullhampton was inspired by Trollope’s interest in the Woman Question. An unexpected dip in her friend’s pond brings Mary Lowther to her senses, and she realises she cannot marry a man she doesn’t love. Although she is adamant, those closest to her conspire to change her mind and they ultimately come to regret it. This is one strand to the novel and, in my opinion, the least successful. Trollope did a much better job in Miss Mackenzie and Can You Forgive Her?, where he considered whether a woman should marry out of a sense of duty. Rachel Ray also saw a far more nuanced examination of the Woman Question. The authorial voice, reflecting, I assume, the opinion of Trollope, decrees that marriage is a woman’s inexorable destiny and she should not fight it. If only they (and also men) came to accept the fact, then life would proceed more smoothly for everyone. The novel was published in 1870, by which time other writers were highlighting the plight of the “surplus” women, for whom marriage was an unlikely prospect. It’s odd that Trollope appears to have taken a retrograde step, unless it was a personal backlash against his own earlier liberalism. ...

In writing Miss Mackenzie (1865), Trollope was attempting to “prove that a novel may be produced without any love,” but later admitted in his autobiography that the attempt “breaks down before the conclusion”. Margaret Mackenzie is an unlikely heroine, being both plain and middle-aged.1 I shall overlook the fact that at 34 she is described as being clearly past her best. After many years lodging with an older brother and nursing him through his illness, Miss Mackenzie finds herself the beneficiary of a £12,000 legacy. This sum produces a not inconsiderable income of £800 per annum, and she is suddenly a valuable commodity, rather than an encumbrance. Her other, impecunious, brother expects her to move in with him and his large family, seeing himself as more deserving of the fortune. Margaret instead moves herself to Littlebath, a fictional watering-place in the West Country, and establishes a life of her own. ...

You certainly need to fasten your seatbelt for Brian Thompson’s biography The Disastrous Mrs Weldon. Wilkie Collins couldn’t have created the eponymous heroine, even if he’d been a bit heavy-handed with the laudanum. During her extraordinary life, Georgina Weldon married an impecunious army officer against her family’s wishes, set up an orphanage in Charles Dickens’ former home, held a famous French composer captive, had a lesbian affair, and represented herself in over 200 court cases. ...

According to P D Edward’s introduction, Trollope sent a copy of Rachel Ray to George Eliot, wondering what she would think of his “little story”. History does not tell us her response, but I suspect she would have enjoyed it, as it is not unlike her own Scenes of Clerical Life. He tried to confine himself to the “commonest details of commonplace life” but this anything but a dull novel. ...

Cousin Henry (1880) is something of a rarity amongst Trollope’s novels in that it’s fairly short. Despite its brevity, it manages to include one of the most interesting character studies I’ve encountered in Victorian fiction. Henry Jones inherits his uncle’s estates and conceals the knowledge that another will had been made, this time leaving them to his cousin Isabel Brodrick. His guilty conscience means that he is unable to enjoy his new-found wealth and he becomes increasingly bitter and reclusive. The presence of the legal will torments him, but his weakness of character prevents him from destroying it. ...