Mona Caird

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Mona Caird (née Mona Alison, also called Alice Mona Henryson Caird) (1854?-1932) was a Scottish novelist and essayist whose feminist views sparked controversy in the late 19th Century. (The year of her birth is uncertain, sometimes given as 1855 or 1858, but most often 1854.)

She was born in Ryde on the Isle of Wight, daughter of John Alison, Midlothian inventor of the vertical boiler, and Matilda Hector. She wrote stories and plays beginning in her early childhood, which reveal a peoficiency in French and German as well as English. She published her first novel, Lady Hetty, anonymously in 1875. In 1877, she married farmer James Alexander Henryson-Caird, son of Sir James Caird on whose land in Cassencary he worked. Her husband was supportive of her independence, and although he resided primarily at Casencary, she spent only a few weeks a year there, spending much of her time in London and traveling abroad. She associated with literary people, including Thomas Hardy who was an admirer of her work, and educated herself in many areas of the humanities and science. The Cairds had one child, Alister James in 1884, and remained married until his death in 1921.

Caird published her next two novels, Whom Nature Leadeth (1883) and One That Wins (1887), under the pseudonym "G. Noel Hatton", but these drew little attention. Subsequent writings were published under her name, which came to prominence in 1888 when the Westminster Review printed her long article "Marriage". In it, she analyzed indignities historically suffered by women in marriage and called its present state a "vexatious failure", advocating the equality and autonomy of marriage partners. London's widely circulated Daily Telegraph quickly responded with a series called "Is Marriage a Failure?", which ran three months and drew a reported 27,000 letters from around the world. Feeling that her views had been misunderstood, she published another article called "Ideal Marriage" later that year. 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), which deals with the subject of marital rape. In it, Viola Sedley murders her cruel husband in self-defense. Next was a short story collection, A Romance of the Moors (1891). In the title story, a widowed artist, Margaret Ellwood, stirs up the relationship of a young couple by counseling them to each become independent and self-sufficient persons. Her most famous novel, Daughters of Danaus (1894), is the story of Hadria Fullerton, who has aspirations to become a composer, but finds that the demands on her time by family obligations, both to her parents and as a wife and mother, allow little time for this pursuit. The novel has since been regarded as a feminist classic. Also well known is her short story "The Yellow Drawing-Room" (1892), in which Vanora Haydon defies the conventional separation of "spheres" of men ans women. Such of her works have been referred to as "fiction of the New Woman".

Active in the women's suffrage movement from her early twenties, Caird joined the National Society for Women's Suffrage in 1878, and later the Women's Franchise League , the Women's Emancipation Union, and the London Society for Women's Suffrage. Her essay "Why Women Want the Franchise" was read at the 1892 WEU Conference. In 1908, she published the essay "Militant Tactics and Woman's Suffrage" and participated in the second Hyde Park Demonstration for women's suffrage. She was also an active opponent of vivisection, writing extensively on the subject, including "The Sanctuary Of Mercy" (1895), "Beyond the Pale" (1896), and a play "The Logicians: An episode in dialogue" (1902), in which the characters argue opposing views on the issue.

Caird was a member of the Theosophical Society from 1904 to 1909. Among her later writings are a large illustrated volume of travel essays, Romantic Cities Of Provence (1906), and novels The Stones Of Sacrifice (1915), which depicts harmful effects of self-sacricice on women, and The Great Wave (1931), a social science fiction which attacks the racist policies of negative eugenics.

Mona Caird died February 4, 1932 at Hampstead.

[edit] Writings of Mona Caird:

Lady Hetty (1877) novel
Whom Nature Leadeth (1883) novel
One That Wins (1887) novel
Marriage (1888) essay
The Wing Of Azrael (1889) novel
The Emancipation of the Family (1890) essay
A Romance Of The Moors (1891) stories
The Yellow Drawing-Room (1892) story
A Defence of the So-Called Wild Women (1892) essay
The Daughters Of Danaus (1894) novel
The Sanctuary Of Mercy 1895) essay
A Sentimental View Of Vivisection (1895) essay
Beyond the Pale: An Appeal on Behalf of the Victims of Vivisection (1897) extended essay
The Morality of Marriage and Other Essays on the Status and Destiny of Women (1897) essays
The Pathway Of The Gods (1898) novel
The Ethics of Vivisection (1900) essay
The Logicians: An episode in dialogue (1902) play
Romantic Cities Of Provence (1906) travel
Militant Tactics and Woman's Suffrage (1908) essay
The Stones Of Sacrifice (1915) essay
The Great Wave (1931) novel