Edinburgh University Press The Feminist New Age: Beatrice Hastings, Katherine Mansfield and Modernist-Era Periodical Culture

Contextualises modernist-era feminist writings of Beatrice Hastings and Katherine Mansfield in The New Age magazine Establishes that The New Age was an important forum for feminist fiction and debate, overturning the consensus view of the magazine as “anti-feminist” or “anti-suffragist” and placing feminism alongside an emerging modernism in readings of this anchor magazine Contributes to the field of feminist modernist studies an exploration of the neglected writings of Beatrice Hastings, Katherine Mansfield, and other modern women writers, illuminating prewar debates concerning sexual life and reproduction Offers new methods to feminist periodical studies by examining the gendered implications of understudied periodical genres and forms, including pseudonymous authorship, correspondence, polemical fiction, and satire Perhaps the best-known among modernist-era magazines, the British socialist weekly The New Age (edited by A. R. Orage from 1907 to 1922) is often mischaracterised as 'anti-feminist' or 'anti-suffragist'. Yet in its early years, this book argues, The New Age served as a crucial forum for feminist fiction and debate – largely thanks to the contributions of Beatrice Hastings and Katherine Mansfield. Too often, Hastings is relegated to a biographical footnote, and Mansfield’s early fiction, if read at all, is divorced from its periodical context. As the first book-length examination of the feminist content of The New Age and of these two writers, this study establishes Hastings’ importance to early twentieth-century women’s history and literary culture, while enriching our understanding of the feminist debates that shaped Mansfield’s writings. Recovering periodical debates concerning marriage, motherhood, citizenship and sexuality, this book expands our sense of pre-war modern feminism.