Sex Power and the Folly of Marriage in Women's Novels of the 1920s

<p> The Americans experienced great social change in the decade following World War I. They were restless often discontented searching for the good life--the one promised to the generation who cheered on by patriotic slogans and propaganda enlisted to fight on European battlefields.</p><p> While young writers such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald romanticized the lives of Americans in postwar Europe and the U.S. a number of women authors in the 1920s looked through a darker lens. The novels of Edith Wharton Willa Cather Margaret Wilson Edna Ferber Ellen Glasgow Dorothy Scarborough and Dawn Powell--set mainly in the 19th century--searched the past for the origins of postwar upheaval especially with respect to the status of women.</p><p> Today a few iconic male novelists of the 1920s are synonymous with the spirit and culture of the Jazz Age. This book focuses on their female contemporaries--largely neglected by both critics and readers--who remain relevant for their exploration of timeless social and psychological themes the battle of the sexes and its tragic consequences.</p>