Modern Women and What Is Said of Them: A Reprint of a Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868)

In 1868, a British writer ignited a cultural firestorm with a single phrase. E. Lynn Linton coined "the girl of the period" in these essays, and the term became inescapable in Victorian society. Her target: young women who dared to prioritize fashion over domesticity, ambition over submission, and self-expression over self-effacement. With sharp, satirical prose, Linton dissects what she sees as the moral collapse of modern femininity, lamenting that her contemporaries have abandoned virtue, modesty, and the invisible labor of womanhood for vanity and social climbing. Yet what makes this collection enduring isn't agreement with Linton's positions. It's the fascinating, uncomfortable tension of a Victorian woman actively policing other women's behavior, revealing the ways patriarchal values were internalized and reinforced by those most harmed by them. The essays function as a time capsule of gender anxiety at a moment when women's roles were genuinely in flux, capturing fears about education, independence, and the slow collapse of separate spheres. For readers interested in Victorian culture, the history of feminism, or the long struggle over what women owe to themselves and society, this is essential reading.