The New Women and the Old Men: Love, Sex and the Woman Question

by RuthBrandon (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1990

  $3.25

  Sexual politics is far from being a recent subject of debate. In the 1880s it occupied a position of central importance in certain radical circles in London, where intellectuals such as Beatrice and Sidney Webb, H.G.Wells, George Bernard Shaw and others debated how sexual relationships should be conducted, and how the ideal socialist household should be organized. Using as the basis of her research the letters, pamphlets and diaries of members of this circle, Ruth Brandon examines the questions and conflicts which they had to face. Particularly, she focuses on the artistic women at the centre of the circle, describing how each was forced to compromise her ideals in order to fit a pattern determined by the men in her life.

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $12.25

  'This is a book of lasting importance, a marker of shifting expectations in the male-female relationships of the West.' IndependentThe New Women and the Old Men is a group biography of the late-Victorian intellectuals and social reformers know collectively as the 'New Thinkers'. This extraordinary group of men and women consisted of Havelock Ellis, Olive Schreiner, Eleanor Marx, Edward Aveling, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells and Margaret Sanger. Brilliantly combining social history, biography and feminist analysis, Ruth Brandon scrutinizes the marital and sexual relationships of this fascinating set.