Sarah Grand

Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t have a favourite novel: then I read The Beth Book. First published in 1897, it tells the story of Elizabeth Caldwell, a heroine whose experiences are closely modelled on Grand’s own life. The young Beth is a bright, inquisitive and loving child who is constrained by her difficult upbringing in a remote town on the west coast of Ireland and then in Yorkshire. Her mother has no idea how to deal with an intelligent daughter and desperately tries to instil in her ideas of feminine self-sacrifice. Like many girls of the period, she is denied an education and encouraged to make an advantageous marriage as soon as possible. ...

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. ...