Forgotten Short Fiction by E. Nesbit and Carmen Sylva: Everything in Moderation

This article focuses on the adult short fiction of Carmen Sylva (1843–1916) and Edith Nesbit (1858–1924). Reevaluating their work recovers an important but overlooked subgenre of the short story—moderate short fiction for adults which tried to reconcile elements that were arguably irreconcilable to many Victorian readers. Their more moderate approach to writing “short”—that is, writing that is neither overly conservative nor progressive—engages with a fragmented feminism, one that offers a realistic response to marriage and relationships at the end of the nineteenth century. Consideration of such fiction generates a broader understanding of the period, the cultural anxieties it embodied and the diverse responses it stimulated.