Elizabeth Robins, 1862–1952
Actress, Novelist, Feminist

Joanne E. Gates (Author)

9780817359409

Paperback / softback, published 23 October 2018

312 pages, 16 black & white figures
22.6 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.492 kg

A model of good research and an excellent scholarly work."" - Jane Marcus, The University of Texas

""An important scholarly achievement. A marvelous work of biographical scholarship, on an important and unjustly neglected figure."" - Kerry Powell, Miami University

Robins's writing on behalf of women's rights issues in the first quarter of the twentieth century represents an important contribution to feminist politics.
 
While buoyed by her early success as an actor, Elizabeth Robins began writing fiction that treated the feminist issues of her time: organized prostitution, women's positions in war-torn England, and the dangers of rearmament. In her acting, writing, and political activism, she consistently challenged existing roles for women.
 
Robins published several novels under the pseudonym C. E. Raimond, culminating in the sensational male-female bildungsroman, The Open Question: A Tale of Two Temperaments, set in her native Zanesville, Ohio, the publication of which finally disclosed her identity. Robins' work is marked by a number of true-life components and Elizabeth Robins, 1862–1952 is the first biography to use the vast collection of her private papers to demonstrate how Robins transformed her own life into literary and dramatic capital.

• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. “
  I Was Born in the Superlative”
  : Girlhood and American Stage Career, 1862–
  1888
• 2. The Coming Woman: Early Years in London, 1888–
  1892
• 3. The Power of Anonymity: Free Choices and a Dual Career, 1893–
  1896
• 4. Toward the New Century: Further Ambitions, Wider Horizons, 1896–
  1900
• 5. The Magnetic North: Raymond, Alaska, Chinsegut, and “
  My Own Life,”
  1900–
  1906
• 6. Votes for Women: The Suffrage Campaign in England, 1906–
  1909
• 7. Political Crises and a Pilgrimage into the Past, 1909–
  1916
• 8. “
  My Share in Graver Business”
  : Fiction and Feminism, 1915–
  1924
• Epilogue
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index