This essay argues that The Spoils of Poynton (1897) can usefully be read in relation to the
emergence of the New Woman and her demands for social equality, particularly her demand
for equal property rights. James's novel treats the theme of female property ownership in
terms of the new legal rights women possessed following the passing of the Married
Women's Property Acts in 1870 and 1882. He also engages with the notion of gender
inversion associated with the New Woman.

James everywhere explores the implications of possession and possessions, of treating
others as things even as things are granted sovereign value. Yet The Spoils of Poynton
holds a special place in his career as a novel that pursues" possession" so persistently as to
rethink all the word's implications--legal, spiritual, psychological, sexual--even as its
meaning seems increasingly obscure in conventional terms. Anticipating the moral
conundrums of the late novels, James for the first time elaborates an ethos that commends …

Abstract This essay reads The Spoils of Poynton as a Modernist re-rendering of the
Austenian marriage plot, tracing the connections between what is not narrated and genre.
The coupling of Northanger Abbey and Spoils, of Catherine Moreland and Fleda Vetch,
highlights how James pushes narrative boundaries, creating a" neo-narrative."