Mona Caird

   

Alice Mona Caird(nee ALice Mona Alison, also called Alice Mona Henryson Caird) was a Scottish novelist and essayist whose feminist views sparked controversery in the late 19th century. Caird was born in Ryde, Scotland in 1854. From early childhood itself she started to write plays and stories, which reveals a proficiency in French, German and English as well. In December 1877, she married James Alexander Henryson Caird, he was supportive of her independence. The Cairds had one child named Alison James. Her husband died in 1921.
          Caird published her first two novels, 'Whom Nature Leadeth' and 'One That Wins', under the pseudonym "G. Noel Hatton", but these drew little attention and subsequent works were published under her own name. She came to prominence in 1888 when the Westminister Review printed her long artice 'Marriage', in which she analysed indignities suffered by women in marriage. Her numerous essays on marriage and women's issues written from 1888 to 1894 were collected in a volume called 'The Morality of Marriage and Other Essays on the Status and Destiny of Women' in 1897.
          Continuing to write fiction, Caird published the novel The Wing of Azrael (1889), a short story collection 'A Romance of the Moors in 1891, in 1894 her famous novel 'The Daughters of Danaus' was published, the novel has been considered as a feminist classic. Also well known is her short story 'The Yellow Drawing Room'. Such of her works have been reffered to as 'fiction of the New Woman'. She was also an active opponent of vivisection. She was a member of the Theosophical Society from 1904 to 1909. Mona Caird died on 4 February 1932 in Hampstead.