Emma Brooke or Emma Frances Brooke (22 December 1844 – November 1926) was a British novelist and a campaigner for the rights of women and workers.
Life
Brooke was born in Cheshire on 22 December 1844. Her father was a cotton mill owner and a capitalist. She was brought up in
Bollington
Bollington is a town and civil parish in Cheshire, England, to the east of Prestbury. In the Middle Ages, it was part of the Earl of Chester's manor of Macclesfield and the ancient parish of Prestbury. In 2011, it had a population of 8,310.
B ...
. Her father died in 1872 and with her inheritance she invested it in her own education. She was educated at
Newnham College
Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicent ...
between 1872 and 1874 and the
London School of Economics
, mottoeng = To understand the causes of things
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £240.8 million (2021)
, budget = £391.1 millio ...
in the late 1890s. After she left Newnham she returned to Bollington. She seems to have lost most of her inherited fortune some time before 1879, though it is unclear how this happened. She never married or had children. She supported herself as a writer from 1880 until 1912, when she stopped writing entirely.
Her most famous novel, A Superfluous Woman, was published in 1894. This was called an immoral tale by some male critics of the time. The plot of the novel focused partly on a story about the effects of the degeneration of the aristocratic classes on the women who were forced to marry them for money. At the end of the novel, the heroine, Jessamine Halliday, gives birth to a deformed still born child and afterward dies. Brooke implies, but does not explicitly state, that the Lord who Jessamine marries might have
syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...
. This was the first of Brooke's "
New Woman
The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th century and had a profound influence well into the 20th century. In 1894, Irish writer Sarah Grand (1854–1943) used the term "new woman" in an influential article, to refer to ...
" novels. Brooke saw this novel and '' The Woman Who Did'' as important in trying to resolve the "Sex Question" which she thought dominated debate in the 1880s and 1890s. She was annoyed when
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fa ...
Weybridge
Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a crossing point of the ...
, Surrey on November 28, 1926.Emma Brooke Elmbridgehundred, Retrieved 21 June 2016
Works
*''Milicent: A Poem'' (1881)
*''A Fair Country Maid'' (1883)
*''God's Gifts to Two or Margaret Redfern's Discipline'' (1883)
*''Reaping the Whirlwind: A Story of Three Lives'' (1885)
*''Entangled'' (1885)
*''The Heir Without a Heritage'' (1887)
*''A Superfluous Woman'' (1894)
* ''Transition'': A Novel (1895)archive.org /ref>
*''Life the Accuser'' (1896)
*''The Confession of Stephen Whapshare'' (1898)
*''The Engrafted Rose'' (1899)
*''The Twins of Skirlaugh Hall'' (1903)
*''The Poet's Child'' (1903)
*''Susan Wooed and Susan Won'' (1905)
*''Sir Elyot of the Woods'' (1907)
*''The Story of Hauksgarth Farm'' (1909)
*''The House of Robershaye'' (1912)