Virago, 1990, 303 p, including xii p Introduction by Victoria Glendinning. First published in 1931.

When the book opens, Lord Slane, former Ambassador, Viceroy of India and an ex-Prime Minister, has just died. His – mostly unappealing – children gather round to dispose of the estate and decide on what rotation to house their mother in her widowhood. Lady Slane (now the dowager Lady, I suppose,) has other ideas. After a lifetime of following her husband’s path, dutifully performing her roles as Ambassadress and Vicereine, she has no desire to conform to their wishes. Instead, she will take a house in Hampstead – one she saw years ago and has always hankered after.

As a youth she had seen a future for herself as a painter but Henry Holland’s marriage proposal had put an end to that. In the Hampstead house she remembers her confusion at the proposal and the swiftness with which her parents and sisters welcomed it; “never had the rays of approval beaten down so warmly upon her.” But “there was only one employment open to women.” (That would certainly be so for women of her class.)  And the painting never materialised. Ruefully she had reflected that, “It would not do, in such a world of assumptions, to assume she had equal rights with Henry.”

With Genoux, her French maid, she passes the time in Hampstead with desultory visits from her children but more frequent ones from Mr Bucktrout, the housing agent who let it out to her, Mr Gosheron, a builder necessary for renovations, and Mr FitzGeorge, a connoisseur whom she had met in India decades ago and who still holds a torch for her, but withholds that information, with all of whom she has more common ground than with her children. She feels more affinity with her great granddaughter, Deborah, who desires to be a musician and will – perhaps – have more chance of pursuing a career than she did.

Indicative of the times, Lady Slane’s thoughts on her life at one point touch on, “Labour, that new and alarming party.”

Though Sackville-West apparently disliked the term this is undoubtedly a feminist book -outlining as it does the constrictions women endured in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, freed from them only when old age and a husband now gone finally allowed.

Pedant’s corner:- In the Introduction “Keats’ house” (Keats’s house,) concensus (consensus.) Otherwise; “the French government were sending a representative” (the French government was sending,) “a Cabinet Minister of England” (there is no – and never has been an – English Cabinet. That system of government was only introduced well after the formation of the UK in 1707,) “in Genoux’ imagination” (Genoux’s – which was used later. In any case, Genoux surely is not even pronounced with a terminal ‘s’ hence its possessive must have one. There was also a later instance of Genoux’,) “oblivious of” (oblivious to,) “‘me who love him better than anything in heaven or earth’”  (‘me who loves him’ seems more natural,) tight-rope (nowadays ‘tightrope’,) “Keats’ house” (Keats’s house.) Balmy (it meant ‘slightly off his head’, so: Barmy,) “a confidant” (the confidant was female, so ‘confidante’.)

Women’s Press SF, 1978, 185 p.

Irene Waskiewicz, whose first name we are told is pronounced in the British way (I-ree-nee,) and Ernst Neumann have been assigned by the Trans-Temporal Authority to the planet of Ala-ed-Deen. Despite Ernst being twenty years or so older than Irene the pair seem to be a long-standing couple.

The culture on Ala-ed-Deen is based on that of the Middle East of our world with women firmly circumscribed. The daughter of the house, Zubeydeh, wants to be a poet but she has no hope of that. To help her achieve that ambition Irene takes the decision to more or less abduct Zubeydeh back to Earth. This causes her relationship with Ernst to break down.

Russ was of course above all a feminist writer and important in Science Fiction’s history for precisely that reason but from a distance of forty years later this novel seems to adopt the trappings of SF to make the points she wishes to about male domination (and female frustration with the resultant repression – due to society’s emphases this is as much internal repression as external) and hence is not the best specimen of SF as a result. For example the purpose and operations of the Trans-Temporal Authority are never spelled out. Not that the book is in any way unreadable; simply a bit out of time.

Pedant’s corner:- “something … that make them look like” (that makes them look like,) “to which the son of Bekkar’s apartments belong” (belongs,) “not knowing what’s waked her” (woken her.) “she sees his face becomes shocked” (become shocked,) Holofernes’ (Holofernes’s.)

Penguin Classics, 1996, 536 p (including 3 p Preface to the Second Edition, 34p Notes on the Text and 2 p Select Bibliography) plus xix p Introduction by Stevie Davis. Originally published in 1848.

This novel is effectively two different stories in one. The enveloping narrative is a series of letters addressed to J Halford Esq by one Gilbert Markham of Linden-Car. Enclosed within it, but much the most substantial part, is a personal testament via diary entries of the woman he comes to love, telling her life story up till she met him. She is, of course, the tenant of Wildfell Hall of the title, Mrs Helen Graham.

The arrival of this widow at the dilapidated Hall, only part of which is now inhabitable, causes much comment in the village, as do her secretive ways. Gilbert first espies her in the local church where he is more interested in her than the sermon. He eventually sets out to the Hall and meets her via an incident involving her young son Arthur, of whom she seems overly protective but whom Markham soon befriends.

Their relationship builds slowly, mediated through Markham’s friendship with Arthur. Mrs Graham has very few dealings with the locals – she will not go anywhere without Arthur and as he cannot walk far extended trips are impractical – but does visit the Markhams’ house where in one conversation he says to her, “When a lady does consent to listen to an argument against her own opinions, she is always predetermined to withstand it – to listen only with her bodily ears, keeping the mental organs resolutely closed against the strong reasoning.”

Slowly rumour and innuendo grow in the village around Helen’s past until Markham confronts her about the tittle-tattle whereupon she gives him her diary to read so that he can learn the truth about her. She is not a widow, but still married, to an Arthur Huntingdon, to whose attractions she had succumbed against her aunt’s better judgement. Her husband is of course a very bad lot indeed and his behaviour was such that she felt forced to flee taking their son with her to avoid his father contaminating his upbringing, her only recourse since divorce was impossible for a woman and as a wife she was in effect a non-person, with no legal rights.

The novel is implicitly feminist therefore not only in that Helen is portrayed as wronged but that she is a stronger, more moral and upright human being than her husband or any of his cronies. Indeed, she is more morally upstanding than Markham since his treatment of Mr Lawrence – who unbeknown to him till later in the book, is Helen’s brother – is thoroughly reprehensible (as well as criminal.) In fact Helen is almost saintly in her forbearance and her actions towards her husband when she discovers he has fallen ill.

It would not be hard to deduce from this book that the author was a daughter of the parsonage. It is saturated with Biblical allusions and quotations. Helen derives most of her consolations from her religious beliefs.

In human affairs things don’t really change that much. Despite complaints from reviewers at the original time of publication that the upper classes no longer behaved in the debauched manner of Huntingdon’s friends as Brontë portrayed them, their activities reminded me of nothing so much as the Bullingdon Club. The book’s feminism most likely also formed the grounds for the unappreciative nature of the original reviews, though Anne’s sister Charlotte also thought the work reprehensible.

To modern eyes the novel is perhaps overwritten and overwrought but Brontë was exposing an ongoing injustice. A degree of fire and venom is understandable.

Pedant’s corner:- window’s weeds (widow’s weeds,) a missing end quote mark, “‘that he is a sensible sober respectable?’” (needs no ‘a’,) ““till the gentleman come. ‘What gentlemen?’” (it was to be a group of men therefore ‘gentlemen’, for ‘gentleman’,) “‘might seem contradict that opinion’” (might seem to contradict that opinion,) plaguy (plaguey?) “in behalf of” (is this an early nineteenth century usage? – on behalf of,) an extra open quote mark in the middle of a piece of direct speech. In the Notes; Jesus’ (x2, Jesus’s,) paeon (paean,) Dives’ (Dives’s,) Mephistophilis (said to be in Marlowe. He spelled it Mephastophilis.)

The Women’s Press SF, 1979, 154 p, plus xviii p introduction by Ann Lane and i p notes. First published in 1915.

This is one of the earliest pieces of feminist Science Fiction, an attempt to imagine what a society without men might look like. In its form it is perhaps rooted in its time; on an expedition three men from the US hear rumours of a land of only women somewhere in the upper reaches of “a great river” – a land which no-one has ever seen but was said to be “dangerous, deadly” for any man to go there; and from which no man had ever returned – in other words a similar scenario to “Lost World”s of dinosaurs. That this is merely an authorial device to entice the men (and the reader) into Herland is revealed when they in fact travel by aeroplane into that mythical place, cut off by earthquake in the long ago, and find no danger but rather an initial sequestration along with a tolerant acceptance mediated by a kind of amusement.

As tends to be the way of these things all is couched as a remembrance by one of the three men, Vandyck Jennings, tracking his progress from a belief that there must be men somewhere in Herland and that social organisation without men must necessarily be lacking to an understanding of the dynamics and motivations of this strange country. But there are no men. The women in Herland reproduce parthenogenetically (how this happened is rather skipped over, being more like a miraculous occurrence than a demonstrable process but there would have been no Herland without it.) Social relations in Herland are such that violence and criminality do not occur. In effect they have been bred out. Roles – including childcare and education, though the latter is something of a life-long endeavour – are performed by those who have an aptitude for them and who specialise in that field. The contrast with the outside world is stark, especially in regard to the valuation of each member of society.

Initially the three are bemused by the appearance of their captors, “In all our discussions and speculations we had always unconsciously assumed that the women would be young. Most men do think that way, I fancy,” and – a telling aside – “‘Woman’ in the abstract is young, and, we assume, charming. As they get older they pass off the stage, somehow.”

The three do eventually form relationships with inhabitants of Herland (somewhat oddly the three women whom they first encountered on arrival) but with the difference in societal norms things do not go smoothly. Of the three intruders Terry O Nicolson is the one who thinks women like to be mastered. “His idea was to take. He thought, he honestly believed, that women like it. Not the women of Herland! Not Alima!” This conflict drives the novel’s conclusion and his banishment.

In his explanations of his world to those in Herland, Vandyck realises that, “Patriotism, red hot, is compatible with the existence of a neglect of national interests, a dishonesty, a cold indifference to the suffering of millions. Patriotism is largely pride, and very largely combativeness. Patriotism generally has a chip on its shoulder,” and religion’s “common basis being a Dominant Power or Powers, and some Special Behaviour, mostly taboos to please or placate.” This leads his companion Ellador to envisage sex as Vandyck describes its place in the outside world not, as with animals, for the one purpose of procreation but as specialised to a “higher, purer nobler use”.

Books such as this cannot be subjected to the usual reviewing criteria. The central focus of a novel about a utopia is that of the nature of the society described and how it differs from, and reflects on, ours. The idea is the substance of the novel. Though illumination of the human condition is not, such considerations as plot and character are secondary. Not that there is no character development in Herland: two of the three male adventurers who venture into this world come to their own terms with it. Nicolson the macho man of course does not. (Arguably he cannot, and without his following his instincts the events which led to Jennings providing us with this account would not have occurred.)

It might be argued that Herland is not Science Fiction. But if Science Fiction is the literature of ideas (often a reason for why some SF fails to produce rounded characterisation, but the SF background can be as much of a character as any humans in the story) then Herland definitely counts. Whatever, one hundred years on from its first publication Herland can still be read with facility. It still stands up. It still marks a contrast between what our society is and what it might aspire to.

Pedant’s corner:- lay of the land (lie of the land,) laying low (lying low: there was a “lie low” later,) sewed up (sewn up,) there were a handful (there was a handful,) “‘Don’t talk to be about wives!’” (me makes more sense.)