A Sunless Heart (Broadview Editions)
"A Sunless Heart is an intriguing novel with compelling characters and bold viewpoints that explores in fascinating ways a spectrum of issues in the late-Victorian period. Examining such significant concerns as female work, sexual perspective, abusive behavior, and searing poverty, the novel presents a complex treatment of controversial ideas and experiences. This excellent Broadview edition brings to our attention an unusual and striking text that had all but disappeared into undeserved obscurity. The novel is helpfully contextualized in the appendices through illuminating extracts on such topics as contemporary fiction, women's roles, and sexual behavior." (Patricia Murphy)"Expertly introduced and comprehensively annotated, this edition makes a significant contribution to the study of fin-de-siècle women's writing. The extensive contextual information offers fascinating insights into a text which at the time of its publication in 1894 was placed alongside the works of New Woman writers. Idiosyncratic, almost baroque in its literary excess, and resistant to categorisation, A Sunless Heart constitutes an arresting document of late-Victorian social problem literature. Not only did the author subvert the trope of the fallen woman by reclaiming her as a respected college teacher, she also braved moral censure in her treatment of taboo subjects such as brother-sister incest, child sexual abuse, and lesbian desire." (Ann Heilmann)