The Way of a Man: A Story of the New Woman

A novel written in the early 20th century. It follows Ellen West, a brilliant New York feminist editor whose attacks on marriage and advocacy of female independence collide with the allure of love and power as she attracts the author Randolph Field, the millionaire Edwin Brown, and the young journalist Ralph Manning. The book probes the clash between the New Woman’s ideals—sexual, economic, and spiritual autonomy—and the old order’s claims of romance, marriage, and possession. The opening of the novel finds Ellen hosting a triumphant Fifth Avenue reception after her election as a reform club’s president, where her manifesto against marriage and for “sex freedom” sets the tone. Field, her realist neighbor, confesses love on the roof and is coolly refused. Brown arrives uninvited; in a candid rooftop interview he first offers a lavish “free alliance,” then marriage, and is rejected on both counts. Ellen is then unexpectedly smitten with Manning, her friend’s Southern nephew, whose earnest ambition and freshness disarm her skepticism. As they meet nightly, she falls hard, while he wins a newspaper post and returns with a ring fashioned from his mother’s earrings, proposing ardently on the starlit roof. She reciprocates his love but refuses marriage on principle, arguing for a free, self-directed union, and their debate over love, freedom, and the “home” swells into a tense impasse as the opening section ends.