Between 1870 and 1910 male authors were actively engaged with imagining new possibilities for women, at the same time as the central female figure continued to function as a troubling and unreachable object of aesthetic desire. This book examines these inscrutable female characters who were the ground on which fiction reinvented itself as Art.

"Feminine Subjects may be of significance to a wide readership, particularly those readers interested in Victorian fiction, representations of women in literature, literary history, and intersections between law, literature, and culture. In it, readers will find a thorough excavation of the contexts in which these works emerged and a subtle rethinking of their reception both in the nineteenth century and our own moment in literary history." (Leah Culligan Flack, James Joyce Quarterly, Vol. 51, 2013)