Menella Bute Smedley
-
Standard Name: Smedley, Menella Bute
Birth Name: Menella Bute Smedley
Pseudonym: S. M.
Pseudonym: M. S.
Pseudonym: One of the Authors of Child-World
Pseudonym: B.
Pseudonym: The Author of Twice Lost
published or co-published around fifteen titles in various genres: stories, novels, poetry, and books for children, besides her contribution to parliamentary reports about pauper schools. Her poetry makes accomplished and at times innovative use of dramatic and lyric form in its treatment of historical and contemporary material. Her work is distinguished by its sensitive depictions of women's struggles for independent lives and effective action, its acute dissection of Victorian gender conventions, and its positive representations of feminism and unconventional femininity.