The New Woman and Technologies of Speed in Fin-de- Siecle Literature

This is the first literary study on the New Woman's interaction with modern speed culture through use of the typewriter and the bicycle. These technologies of speed allowed middle-class women, hitherto confined in quiet, slow-paced domesticity, to enter the bustling, hectic-paced modern urban life as new players. The New Woman's body was subject to intense pressure to keep up with techno-aided speed, but at the same time she learned to be faster, more efficient,and gained technological knowledge. By reading fin-de-siècle literature penned by Gissing, Wells, Allen, and others, this book argues that the ability to catch up with, imitate, adjust to, and finallymaster modern mechanized speed, is what makes the New Woman new.