The symbol of the shifting categories of gender and sexuality, the New Woman epitomized the spirit of the fin-de-si?cle. This monograph offers an interdisciplinary approach to the growing field of New Woman studies by exploring the relationship between the first-wave feminist literature, the 19th-century women's movement and female consumer culture. The book places the debate about femininity, feminism, and fiction in its cultural and socio-historical context exploring New Woman fiction as a genre, whose emerging theoretical discourse prefigured concepts central to second-wave feminist theory.