Decadent Women: Yellow Book Lives

Adams (Café Europa), a research fellow at the University of London’s Institute of English, presents a valuable if prosaic study of women writers who published in The Yellow Book, an avant-garde British literary journal that ran from 1894–97. Examining the lives of such authors as short story writer Ella D’Arcy, novelist Ménie Muriel Dowie, and biographer Ethel Colburn Mayne, Adams contends that though these women came from different social classes and countries, they shared a “decadent” mindset (a “catch-all term for challenges to the establishment consensus” in the 1890s) that manifested in their questioning of gender roles and writing frankly about sexuality and women’s struggles and desires. Other profile subjects include Netta Syrett, whose 1902 play The Finding of Nancy attracted controversy for depicting an extramarital relationship; Olive Custance, a poet from an aristocratic background who spent her later years striving for independence from her father, whom she relied on financially; and Chavelita Clairmonte (pen name George Egerton), whose short stories Adams credits with helping to popularize “New Woman ideas,” which challenged patriarchy and promoted greater sexual freedom for women. Adams does a fine job of portraying how these authors pushed back against constrictive norms, though his matter-of-fact delivery somewhat dulls the more colorful aspects of their biographies. Still, this is worth a look. Photos. (Nov.)