Ella Hepworth Dixon: Sidelights on the Feminine Temperament
Selected Short Stories
Edited by Valerie Fehlbaum
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ISBN: 978-1-839542-45-9 (hardback) • RRP £51.99, $69.99, €59.99 ISBN: 978-1-839542-46-6 (paperback) • RRP £18.99, $26.99, €22.99 ISBN: 978-1-839542-47-3 (JSTOR ebook) Access online: Books@JSTOR ‘We are like children to whom a pack of cards is thrown, and who are set down to play a strange game with men who are confirmed gamblers. The rules are never told us, so that we blunder helplessly along, and, unless we cheat outrageously, or mark the cards, there’s small chance of our winning.’ In 1904 a collection of Ella Hepworth Dixon’s short stories was published under the title One Doubtful Hour and Other Sidelights on the Feminine Temperament. Since then, in spite of several reprints of her much acclaimed, so-called ‘New Woman’ novel The Story of a Modern Woman (1894), most of Hepworth Dixon’s ‘clever modern tales’, as The Times’ critic described them, have remained out of print. The stories had all previously appeared during the preceding decade in various periodicals, some aimed at a primarily female readership such as the Lady’s Pictorial, others at a wider, more general public, such as the Pall Mall Magazine and the Yellow Book. This collection comprises the whole of One Doubtful Hour, as well as selected other stories, including those published in Oscar Wilde’s Woman’s World and those containing embryonic elements later re-worked into her celebrated novel and her less well-known play The Toyshop of the Heart (performed in 1908 but never published). The volume also includes a selection of non-fiction pieces, among which are contributions to a debate on ‘Why Women are Ceasing to Marry’. A comprehensive introduction sets Hepworth Dixon and her work in the historical, literary and social context in which she thrived, and a critical commentary examines the changes she made between original publication and book form. Valerie Fehlbaum, formerly a lecturer at Geneva University, is the author of Ella Hepworth Dixon: The Story of a Modern Woman (2005). For a contents listing, see this volume at JSTOR. Bibliography entry: Fehlbaum, Valerie (ed.), Ella Hepworth Dixon: Sidelights on the Feminine Temperament: Selected Short Stories, Jewelled Tortoise, 12 (MHRA, 2026) First footnote reference: 35 Ella Hepworth Dixon: Sidelights on the Feminine Temperament: Selected Short Stories, ed. by Valerie Fehlbaum, Jewelled Tortoise, 12 (MHRA, 2026), p. 21. Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Fehlbaum, p. 47. (To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.) Bibliography entry: Fehlbaum, Valerie (ed.). 2026. Ella Hepworth Dixon: Sidelights on the Feminine Temperament: Selected Short Stories, Jewelled Tortoise, 12 (MHRA) Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Fehlbaum 2026: 21). Example footnote reference: 35 Fehlbaum 2026: 21. (To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.) This title is distributed on behalf of MHRA by Ingram’s. Booksellers and libraries can order direct from Ingram by setting up an ipage Account: click here for more. Permanent link to this title: www.mhra.org.uk/publications/Ella-Hepworth-Dixon-Sidelights-on-Feminine-Temperament www.mhra.org.uk/publications/jt-12 |
3 June 2026 • 252pp