Modern Domestic Fiction

The nineteenth-century genre of domestic fiction continues to perform important cultural work for women readers in the early twentieth century – this is the argument of ‘Modern Domestic Fiction’. Discussing texts by Dorothy Canfield, Zona Gale, and Inez Haynes Irwin, this study demonstrates how between 1905 and 1925 domestic fiction took a central role in promulgating popular feminist ideas, creating a mass magazine market geared to women, and shaping new middle-class identity.