Ella Hepworth Dixon

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As a suffragist writing at the turn of the century, EHD often deals with the question of female independence, while critiquing fin de siècle society. Along with her extraordinary New Woman novel, she produced a volume of short stories, a collection of comic pieces (published under a pseudonym), and numerous articles (some of which were travel articles) and stories for various journals. Indeed, everything she ever published . . . appeared first in the periodical press.
Fehlbaum, Valerie. Ella Hepworth Dixon: the Story of a Modern Woman. Ashgate.
66-7
Near the end of her life she published an autobiography.
Black and white photograph of Ella Hepworth Dixon. She is shown from the shoulders up, wearing a dark dress with short sleeves. Her hair is in a bun and her head is turned so that her face is in profile.

Milestones

27 March 1857

EHD was born at Essex Villa, Queens Road, Marylebone.
The year of her birth has often been wrongly given as 1855.
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. “Introduction”. The Story of a Modern Woman, edited by Steve Farmer, Broadview, pp. 9-39.
37
Sutherland, John. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

29 January 1888

The Sunday Times carried EHD 's earliest identified, signed story, Dr Patmore's Patient.
Fehlbaum, Valerie. Ella Hepworth Dixon: the Story of a Modern Woman. Ashgate.
68

By mid-October 1892

As Margaret Wynman, EHD published a volume of fiction which is less like a novel than a collection of short humorous pieces (which was its original form). It was entitled (by the publisher) My Flirtations.
Fehlbaum, Valerie. Ella Hepworth Dixon: the Story of a Modern Woman. Ashgate.
93n32
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Fehlbaum, Valerie. Ella Hepworth Dixon: the Story of a Modern Woman. Ashgate.
90

By 10 June 1894

EHD published her autobiographical New Woman novel (indeed, her only novel), The Story of a Modern Woman, dedicated to her sister Marion .
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. The Story of a Modern Woman. Editor Farmer, Steve, Broadview.
196
Fehlbaum, Valerie. Ella Hepworth Dixon: the Story of a Modern Woman. Ashgate.
91

1931

EHD 's The New Egypt in The Empire Review is the latest signed article by her which Valerie Fehlbaum has identified.
Fehlbaum, Valerie. Ella Hepworth Dixon: the Story of a Modern Woman. Ashgate.
66

12 January 1932

EHD died in her late seventies at the Savoy Hotel in London, of respiratory disease.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Family

27 March 1857

EHD was born at Essex Villa, Queens Road, Marylebone.
The year of her birth has often been wrongly given as 1855.
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. “Introduction”. The Story of a Modern Woman, edited by Steve Farmer, Broadview, pp. 9-39.
37
Sutherland, John. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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