Sarah Grand

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SG is known as a late nineteenth-century women's rights campaigner and social reformer. She claimed to have coined the term New Woman in her article The New Aspect of the Woman Question, which appeared in the North American Review in March 1894. Her novel Ideala, 1888, was an early example of the New Woman novels which became increasingly popular, if controversial, among both female and male writers at the turn of the century. Her nine novels and three collections of short stories tend toward the didactic; she explicitly acknowledged her belief in writing as instruction rather than as art.
Bonnell, Marilyn. “Sarah Grand and the Critical Establishment: Art for [Wo]man’s Sake”. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Vol.
14
, No. 1, pp. 123-48.
133
She also published a pamphlet on male-female relationships, as well as many articles and lectures on gender issues. She never tried to publish the poetry that she wrote for pleasure.

Milestones

10 June 1854

Frances Elizabeth Bellenden Clarke (who later wrote as SG) was born in Bally Castle, Donaghadee, County Down, Ireland. She was the fourth of five children: three girls and two boys.
Kersley, Gillian. Darling Madame: Sarah Grand and Devoted Friend. Virago Press.
ix, 17

7 February 1893

SG 's three-volume novel The Heavenly Twins (the second in her feminist trilogy) was published under her pseudonym after being privately printed the year before.
Kersley, Gillian. Darling Madame: Sarah Grand and Devoted Friend. Virago Press.
72
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press.

By 5 September 1922

SG published with Heinemann her last volume of short stories (and her final book): Variety.
Grand, Sarah. Sex, Social Purity and Sarah Grand: Volume 1. Editor Heilmann, Ann, Routledge.
553
Kersley, Gillian. Darling Madame: Sarah Grand and Devoted Friend. Virago Press.
125

12 May 1943

SG died in her sleep at her home, The Grange, in Calne, Wiltshire; she was eighty-eight years old.
Kersley, Gillian. Darling Madame: Sarah Grand and Devoted Friend. Virago Press.
330

Biography

Birth and Background

10 June 1854

Frances Elizabeth Bellenden Clarke (who later wrote as SG) was born in Bally Castle, Donaghadee, County Down, Ireland. She was the fourth of five children: three girls and two boys.
Kersley, Gillian. Darling Madame: Sarah Grand and Devoted Friend. Virago Press.
ix, 17