1920s Novels by Women Writers That Still Resonate Today
By Nava Atlas | On February 28, 2025 | Comments (2)
It’s incredible (and sad) that we’re still grappling with the same issues presented in these five 1920s novels by women writers. Four of them fell out of print and were rediscovered and reissued decades later; one has never gone out of print. It’s wonderful that all are available in fresh new or recent editions.
In these reissues, fascinating new introductions, forewords, or afterwords re-introduce these writers aren’t known enough and/or shouldn’t have been forgotten in the first place: Ursula Parrott, Radclyffe Hall, Anzia Yezierska, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
As Edna St. Vincent Millay famously wrote, it’s not one damn thing after another, it’s the same damn thing, over and over. One hundred years or so after these books came out, we’re still grappling with their central themes in the culture and in personal lives. And while that’s frustrating, it’s also why these novels are still relevant to contemporary readers.
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Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott (1929)
I first discovered Ursula Parrot and her best-known book, Ex-Wife, in this episode of the Lost Ladies of Lit podcast. Marsha Gordon, the author of Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life & Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott . It remained the most successful and controversial of her many published works. From Marsha:
“Once the most renowned ex-wife in America, bestselling author Ursula Parrott (1899– 1957) was routinely described as ‘famous’ in her lifetime when the press covered her new books, Hollywood deals, marriages and divorces, and run-ins with the law … She published twenty books from the late 1920s through the late 1940s, several of them bestsellers, and over one hundred short stories, articles, and novel-length magazine serials.
… After making hundreds of thousands of dollars writing — during the height of the Depression no less — Ursula lost it all, ending up homeless in the 1950s. Like many other influential, bestselling women writers, she was unfairly pigeonholed and dismissed as a romance magazine writer and her death in 1957 transpired with little notice.”
Patricia, the novel’s protagonist, relates her adventures and misadventures in a brisk, wry style. The writing feels so fresh, it could have been written yesterday. Patricia’s story features a disintegrating open marriage, bed-hopping, abortion, rape, and spousal abuse, all awash in plenty of alcohol (though set in the days of prohibition).
A typical review observed: “There is a procession of men friends, numerous affairs — but no real love or joy … This book is assuredly frank. If it hasn’t been ‘banned in Boston,’ it will be.” Though Ex-Wife’s controversies drove it onto the bestseller list, it was never banned — demonstrating the random nature of censorship. Many reviewers cast Ex-Wife as a cautionary tale: “Freedom of women found not so free,” blared one headline.
In Becoming the Ex-Wife, Marsha Gordon pinpoints what is so disturbing about how Ex-Wife was received and reviewed:
“While many contemporary reviewers of the novel criticized its sensationalism, none expressed concerned over the violence Patricia endures. That reviewers compared Ex-Wife to novels ranging from Daniel Defoe’s 1724 Roxana to Anita Loos’s 1925 Gentleman Prefer Blondes suggest a certain blindness to the real atrocity of the novel, which has to do with the way men, repeatedly, forcefully, and viciously take liberties with women’s bodies. Was this violence so ordinary, or seemingly justifiable, that it went unnoticed?”
All twenty of Ursula Parrot’s fell out of print. McNally Editions republished Ex-Wife in 2023; and it has been translated into Italian, Swedish, Spanish, German, and Dutch. Marsha Gordon has lots more to say about this forgotten author and her neglected body of work in 10 Fascinating Facts About Ursula Parrott.
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The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928)
A queer writer’s plea for tolerance is dragged through the courts
Radclyffe Hall (1880 – 1943) was a British author best known for her groundbreaking novel, The Well of Loneliness. It’s often described as the story of young woman’s coming to terms with her lesbian identity, but it’s more than that. It’s about a person born female making sense of her maleness. It was certainly ahead of its time in expressing the concept of gender dysphoria without the vocabulary available today.
Radclyffe Hall wore male clothing, preferred to be called “John,” and wanted to be accepted by society as male. Hall described herself as a “congenital invert,” a term that came from early 20th-century sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, referring to inborn gender reversal where women could be born with a masculine soul and vice versa — in contemporary terms, transgender.
The book’s main character is Stephen Gordon, whose father fittingly gave her a male name. Hall touchingly, often achingly, weaves the story of Stephen’s life, longings, and relationships with women using the limited descriptive language available at the time. The book caused a furor when it was published in England in 1928. Though it addressed its themes in a subtle and completely non-graphic manner, copies of the book were seized soon after publication.
The campaign against the book was led by the editor of the Sunday Express, who famously wrote, “I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel.”
Hall’s publisher forced to endure an obscenity trial. The prosecution won, with the British court ruling that the novel was obscene because it defended “unnatural practices between women.” Hall and her publisher were forced to burn the already-printed copies in England, at their own expense. Fortunately, the book was concurrently published in France and other countries, and thanks to a loophole it could be imported into Britain. The controversy made it a bestseller, though officially it remained banned in England until 1959, sixteen years after Hall’s death.
The Well also went to trial in the U.S. in 1928, and it prevailed, though not without a fight (and a sharp attorney). Radclyffe Hall waded into the fray with eyes open. She wrote the novel purposefully as a plea for tolerance of people who didn’t fit into the gender binary. Of the five books presented here, it’s the only one that has never gone out of print. Consider a foundational LGBTQ classic, it’s a great read — or listen. I’m listening to it on Audible, interpreted by a wonderful reader.
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Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska (1925)
Bread Givers is the best-known novel by by Anzia Yezierska (1885 – 1970), whose work reflected the Jewish immigrant experience in early 1900s America. To present this kind of story with a female perspective — and get it published — was a rarity at the time, reflecting the author’s chutzpah and determination.
Anzia arrived with her family to New York City’s Lower East Side around 1893. A product of the immigration wave of the late 1800s, she never quite shed the feeling of being an outsider. Longing to rise above her circumstances, she was somewhat hampered by her brittle personality and a helping of self-loathing.
An autobiographical novel, Bread Givers delves into the well-trodden theme of an immigrant family whose children strain against Old World parents. The father, Reb. Smolinsky, is learned in the holy Torah, but he’s childish, impractical, and inflexible when it comes to his three daughters, who chafe under his domination.
The youngest and feistiest of the sisters is Sara, oddly nicknamed “Blut und Eisen” (Blood and Iron). The fictional stand-in for the real-life Anzia, Sara rebels fiercely, fighting for autonomy and self-determination. The process of breaking away from her father’s rule is painful. Some of her strivings lead to discomfort and embarrassment, but she emerges as a person (mostly) in command of her world.
Bread Givers reads a bit awkwardly at times, sometimes apparent that English wasn’t this writer’s first language. Still, it’s a fast-moving read in which one person’s immigrant experience speaks to the universal promise and perils of the mythical American Dream.
Bread Givers was out of print when it was rediscovered by a doctoral student in the 1960s. It was republished in 1975 and has been reissued in several editions since. Here’s more about Bread Givers and in Anzia’s own words, her struggle to write it.
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There is Confusion by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1924)
Black narratives and histories are once again being challenged
There is Confusion by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882 – 1961) was the first novel by this multitalented editor, poet, essayist, educator, and novelist associated with the Harlem Renaissance. In addition to her own pursuits, Jessie was known as one of the “literary midwives” of the movement, someone who encouraged and supported other talents in her role as the literary editor of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP.
After being out of print for decades, Modern Library reissued There is Confusion in 2020 (this novel deserves a better cover!). The publisher’s synopsis:
“A rediscovered classic about how racism and sexism tests the spirit, ambition, and character of three children growing up in Hell’s Kitchen and Harlem … Set in early-twentieth-century New York City, There Is Confusion tells the story of three Black children: Joanna Marshall, a talented dancer willing to sacrifice everything for success; Maggie Ellersley, an extraordinarily beautiful girl determined to leave her working-class background behind; and Peter Bye, a clever would-be surgeon who is driven by his love for Joanna … There Is Confusion is an unjustly forgotten classic that celebrates Black ambition, love, and the struggle for equality.”
Reviews in white newspapers made a huge to-do about There is Confusion’s depiction of middle-class Black people doing ordinary things and grappling with universal quandaries and challenges of life. They didn’t object, but found it incredible that the Black characters were portrayed in ways that didn’t involve the usual demeaning stereotypes. They also expressed amazement that a Black woman could write so gracefully, blithely unaware that Jessie was a graduate of Cornell University (class of 1905!) and had a Master’s degree in French from the University of Pennsylvania.
There is Confusion was the first of Jessie Fauset’s four novels, all of which were occasionally criticized by Black critics as having an overly bourgeoise perspective. Yet other Black reviewers were delighted. Critic and anthropologist William Stanley Braithwaite praised Jessie as “the potential Jane Austen of Negro literature.” Here’s more about There is Confusion.
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The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1924)
The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher imagined a domestic role-reversal, something virtually unheard of in the early 1920s. Fisher (1879–1958) was an American writer, educational reformer, and social activist based in New England.
At the start of The Home-Maker, Evangeline and Lester Knapp are both unhappily going through the motions of their traditional roles. An accident forces them to reverse roles, and from that adversity, the family finds strength and happiness. I couldn’t scout out when The Home-Maker fell out of print, other than that it did. It seems to have been re-issued as an Audible edition only (which is how I consumed it), and not in book form. Here’s a concise description from the audio edition:
“Evangeline Knapp’s neighbors are in awe of her prowess. She re-upholsters furniture and can take scraps of fabric and create a beautiful garment. Her house is always immaculate and her children are beautifully behaved — except for the stubborn youngest, but with Eva’s strength of will, they’re certain she’ll sort him out in time.
The neighbors don’t know that in her frenzied zeal to create the perfect home, her children live in dread of her temper. She loves them, but she can’t stand having to remind them constantly about the same things, simple rules easy enough for anyone to understand. Eva can’t abide childishness.
Her husband Lester is no less miserable in his job as a department store accountant, sacrificing his love of literature and poetry to the daily grind of commerce. Lester can’t seem to get ahead and feels like a failure … When a near-fatal accident forces these two to switch roles, each finds their true calling. Then fate steps in again. As with her children’s classic Understood Betsy, Dorothy Canfield Fisher brilliantly explores the inner lives not only of the parents but the three Knapp children. The Home-Maker proves … that biology should not determine destiny.”
The Home-Maker seems to have been well-received at the time as a mid-list book by a well-known author. Despite its unusual theme, it was surprisingly uncontroversial. I wonder if it would be more so today, with this crazy “trad wife” trend happening. This novel is engaging and enjoyable, and reminds us that even today, women in heteronormative households are still doing the lion’s share of housework and childcare.
The audiobook of The Home-Maker is available on Audible (via Amazon), and can also be read on Project Gutenberg (though the formatting is hard on the eyes).
The Home-Maker was reprinted by Persephone Books and is readily available.
Thank you, Meg — someone on my Substack mentioned that as well; that’s good news; I’m not sure that Persephone books are widely available in the U.S. though they can be ordered online, which makes them a bit expensive on this end. I just found out that a new US publisher, Quite Literally Books, is releasing this title in early April 2025 in a beautiful new edition: https://quiteliterallybooks.com/product/the-home-maker/