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An Unconventional and Contradictory Life: Lady Florence Dixie (1855–1905)

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Biographical Misrepresentations of British Women Writers

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Life Writing ((PSLW))

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Abstract

A lifelong advocate for women’s rights, Lady Florence Dixie was also a prolific writer, publishing eighteen books and innumerable periodical stories and essays. Dixie was an extremely popular public figure, whose movements and attire were often reported in society columns and whose sporting accidents were reported at great length. Dixie’s unconventional life, political activism, and family scandal, contributed to a wealth of contradictory information about her life. This chapter presents the various accounts of the March 17, 1883 attack on Dixie’s person to discuss the way both Dixie’s contemporary and modern biographers received evidence of the attack in order to argue that Dixie’s legacy has been marred by her controversial lifestyle and political engagement.

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Acknowledgements

This chapter is dedicated to the late Nan Bowman Albinski , a brilliant scholar of utopian studies and nineteenth-century women’s writing. This work would not have been possible without her generosity. This chapter is part of a larger, co-authored manuscript on Lady Florence Dixie (in preparation).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Santa Fe College, Gainesville, USA

    Taryne Jade Taylor

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  1. Taryne Jade Taylor
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia, USA

    Brenda Ayres

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Taylor, T.J. (2017). An Unconventional and Contradictory Life: Lady Florence Dixie (1855–1905). In: Ayres, B. (eds) Biographical Misrepresentations of British Women Writers. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56750-1_13

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