Anna Maria Jones, University of Central Florida
Vol. 26, No. 2 (Fall 2007), 217-241

This essay investigates the potential for feminist readership in Sarah Grand’s The Heavenly Twins. Jones finds the frustrating conclusions of many Victorian New Woman novels to be precisely the kind of pedagogical device intended by authors such as Grand to incite women to work toward a better society, of which they would probably not be a part. By alluding to future possibility but denying immediate wish fulfillment, these novels prepare women for the slow grinding hard work of feminism without the false promise of immediate reward. The article locates the feminist effort of New Woman novels not in the authorship but rather in the readership as activism through reading.