The 1890s in Britain were a time of changing values, a time when traditional conceptions of the world were being called into question. One of the major issues of the day revolved around what was called "the woman question" the debate over a woman's place in society. "The Angel in the House," a popular Victorian poem later made famous in an essay by Virginia Woolf, presented the perfect woman as one who always sacrificed her own comfort for the sake of others, whose major purpose in life was to care for her home and family, who deferred to her husband at all times, and who had no desires, sexual or otherwise, of her own.

It was also at this time, however, that the term "new woman," probably coined in 1894, came into prominence. The new woman was a member of a more liberated generation. She sought suffrage...