SOURCE: Johnson, Patricia E. “Naming the Unnameable: Sexual Harassment in Novels of Industry.” In Hidden Hands: Working-Class Women and Victorian Social-Problem Fiction, edited by Patricia E. Johnson, pp. 45-70. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001.

In the following excerpt, Johnson describes the elements of the Victorian social-problem novel in Helen Fleetwood, focusing especially on the work's frank depiction and criticism of England's industrial system.

“The poor harassed girl.”

Helen Fleetwood

In Helen Fleetwood, the narrator describes the effects of factory work on the sixteen-year-old title character:

Helen Fleetwood was … not a girl of robust make, or rude strength; but no tendency to a sickly habit had ever appeared in her constitution. The rapid effect of mill-labour upon it had led her to suspect some lurking unsoundness; but a little more experience and observation would have proved to her how short a resistance the stoutest frame could offer to the debilitating...