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Chapter 9 mol ly you ngk i n Henrietta Stannard (856–9), Marie Corelli (855–924), and Annesley Kenealy (86–934?) The Society of Authors, founded in 884 by Walter Besant, was the first organization to advocate fair practices in the literary marketplace with regard to copyright and pay for the numerous authors writing in a developing industry. Through a variety of social and professional activities and its monthly journal, the Author, the Society became a major force in public discussion of authorship issues by the mid-890s, when it boasted over ,000 members. As the primary advocate for authors in late-Victorian culture, the Society succeeded in settling numerous disputes between authors and publishers; educating authors about the law so they could make informed decisions about how their work would be published; and laying the groundwork for important copyright law, such as the 9 Copyright Act, which made the copyright owner the central figure in all transactions concerning literary work. For the most part, authors who were members of the Society benefited greatly from its presence in the literary marketplace, but the relationship between the Society and women writers was a tenuous one. While women were permitted in the Society early on—Charlotte Yonge was one of the first honorary members— the membership and the Society’s policy-making committee were dominated by men. Further, women could not be elected to the Society’s Council, which advised the committee, until 896. As a result, women writers who belonged to the organization often felt excluded from the Society’s decision-making process in at least an informal way, and at times, they were excluded in an unequivocally direct manner. The most obvious form of exclusion came in 890, when Besant 48 | molly youngkin formed the Authors’ Club, a smaller social club within the Society established to improve the sense of camaraderie among members. As is evident from articles appearing in the Author, male members of the Society feared the admittance of women into spaces they perceived as belonging to themselves, and they made this fear public when Besant laid out the plan for the club.¹ In December 890, in the pages of the Author, Besant made it clear that any club sponsored by the Society should include its female as well as its male members, in the spirit of acceptance exhibited by the Albemarle Club² (“News and Notes”). But, when members of the Society responded to Besant’s call for feedback on the project, especially whether they should create an Authors’ Club (which would emphasize social gatherings) or an Authors’ House (which would be more of a work space for writers than a social space), the male members of the Society overwhelmingly voted for a club rather than a house.³ Further, the male members objected to the presence of women in the club. As Besant states in his summary of the voting, “The ladies who voted for a Club did not raise a word against the admission of men, but many of the men, speaking for a club, urged strongly upon us the necessity of excluding ladies” (“Notes and News” [6 February 89]). Although Besant himself seems to have recognized that it would be unfair to exclude women from the club, he and a subcommittee of six other men ultimately decided that the club would be for men only, with women admitted on Wednesday afternoons and for special events (“Notes and News” [ August 89] 83; “Authors’ Club” [ August 89]; “Authors’ Club” [ April 893] 40). While the Authors’ Club controversy stands as a representative example of women writers’ exclusion from activities that might have supported and enhanced their professional lives, women ultimately did gain more participatory roles in the Society, such as serving on the Council. Women writers also found ways to create their own professional support system, despite exclusion from certain activities by the Society. Shortly after the controversy over the Authors’ Club, Henrietta Stannard and other female members of the Society formed their own club, called the Writers’ Club (“Ladies’ Club”). But the road to acceptance within the Society was a gradual one, and individual women continued to struggle with their respective statuses within the Society well into the twentieth century. The letters I have selected reflect these differing struggles in order to illustrate the complex role gender played in the development of professional authorship. Henrietta Stannard, who wrote under the pseudonyms “Violet Whyte” and “John Strange Winter” and was the author of A Blameless Woman...

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