Ouida the Phenomenon

Book excerpt: "This first full-length study of the works of best-selling Victorian novelist Ouida (pen name for Marie Louise Rame) examines the evolution of social, political, and gender issues in Ouida's fiction from her "high society" romances of the 1860s to her satirical exposes of contemporary society in the 1880s and 1890s." "This study places Ouida in the context of nineteenth-century debates over gender by exploring the contradictions between the vehement critiques of marriage in her fiction and the equally vehement anti-feminist sentiments of her journalism. Examining Ouida's revision of gender stereotypes such as the domestic angel, the adventuress, and the dandy, Schroeder and Holt establish Ouida as a significant predecessor of the 1890s New Woman."--BOOK JACKET.