How to Make a Heterosexual Romance

Queer: Anna Marsdens Experiment and

the Limits of Sexual/Gendered Inversion

LAURA CHILCOAT
University of Florida

AT FIRST GLANCE, Ellen Williamss Anna Marsdens Experiment

(1899) appears to be another typical New Woman novel invested in gen-
der inversion to show womens capabilities in a masculine world. Wil-
liams seems to invite this reading from the very first sentence which
links Anna with the symbolic latchkey as an emblem of emancipated
womanhood and mentions her superfluous status.1 The use of what
were by this point New Woman clichs establishes this novel as work-
ing firmly within this genre, yet the mannish New Woman figure at its
heart goes beyond convention to create a new possibility for turn-of-
the-century gender and sexuality. The experiment of the title refers to
Annas ability to pass as a man for the bulk of the novel. Although New
Woman fiction frequently featured women who cross-dressed, none are
quite as invested in queering the notions of gender as Williamss Anna
Marsdens Experiment. Anna considers becoming a man after she real-
izes that she is a failure [as a woman], both in love and ambitiona
distinct, dreary failure; but as a man.2 The unfinished nature of this
sentence indicates that as a man Anna will be a success. This phrasing
could imply that she will be a success in love as well as ambition, but
the text never makes clear exactly what Anna seeks beyond living as
a man.
Other New Woman novels which engaged in this trope presented the
womens ulterior motives as clear and finite. Sarah Grands interlude
in The Heavenly Twins (1893) shows her protagonist to dress as a boy
only at night, and for a short period of time before she is reclaimed back
into a properly gendered domesticity. Lady Florence Dixies Gloriana,
or, the Revolution of 1900 (1890) has the titular character live as a man
for years in order to forward womens rights. Gloriana, too, ends the

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novel as a married woman. In the same novel, a detectives assistant,

Leonie, passes as a man for a short period of time in order to track Glo-
riana. In Victoria Crosss Six Chapters of a Mans Life (1903), Theodora
passes as a man so that she may travel with her lover. There are many
more such examples in the New Woman canon, yet Anna Marsden is
the only character to live and work as a man for an extended period
of time solely because it suits her. Her reversion back to living as a
woman at the end of the novel is not due to any self-conscious desire
on her own part; rather, she is forced to out herself to an acquain-
tance and must thereafter resume her life as a woman. The sustained
gender-crossing and invocation of New Woman tropes speak to Wil-
liamss attempt to create a novel within this genre that takes inversion
beyond any of the previous narratives. Through sustained analysis of
the presentation of gendered fluidity, it becomes evident that this novel
relies on the generic trope of the cross-dressing, mannish New Woman
in order to separate Anna Marsden and present her as a character who
is recognizably and innately queer.
The gender inversion that occurred in other New Woman novels was
often a reaction to the popular presss disparaging presentation of the
New Woman as mannish and was actually adopted as a positive at-
tribute stripped of its sexual connotations. These women were able to
cross gender boundaries without being easily identified as sexually
inverted through their eventual heterosexual ends. Heike Bauer has
argued that the New Women understood gender in terms of binaries
that could be reversed but that this reversal is not a uniformly pro-
gressive one as their affirmative politics of female inversion, because it
was understood as a form of rational female masculinity, marginalized
same-sex desire.3 Many scholars have discussed the homoeroticism
that occurs from these cross-dressing episodes, but Bauers astute com-
ment that the narratives still alienate the sexual inversion that was
being discussed in the sexological texts of the time does not negate this
potential. Her argument instead highlights the authors use of gender
inversion at the expense of sexual inversion. The understudied Anna
Marsdens Experiment is an exception to this idea since it engages in
sexual as well as gender inversion. Williams complicates gender inver-
sion through her rejection of the binary understanding of gender that
provided the foundation for a sexological discussion of inversion. She
also invokes and similarly complicates sexual inversion through coded
language and symbols that show the queer transgression of her novels
titular character. Anna Marsdens Experiment provides an intermedi-

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ary between the gender-inverted characters in the New Woman genre

and the sexually inverted Stephen Gordon of Radclyffe Halls 1928 The
Well of Loneliness. Although Halls narrative remains radical in its in-
clusion of an overtly inverted character, it does not appear without any
literary predecessors, and an understanding of the ways that Williams
queered notions of the heterosexual, mannish New Woman will aid in
seeing the links between the New Woman fiction of the fin de sicle and
the queer feminist modernism of the early twentieth century.

Anna Marsdens Masculinity & Isolation

The plot of Anna Marsdens Experiment lends itself easily to a rheto-
ric of gender inversion: Anna Marsden, dissatisfied with her life as a
woman, decides one day to become an invented male cousin named
Richard Dick4 Ward. She lives and succeeds as a man in the realms
where she had earlier failed as a woman; however, her closest friend,
Rupert Deane, becomes ill after a failed proposal to his love, Lottie
Thorne. Lotties refusal is due to her romantic feelings for Dick, a prob-
lem that Dick fixes by revealing his secret to her. This revelation is
intended to return her to the arms of Rupert, a plan which is only
somewhat successful as it does not save the ailing Rupert. Once Ru-
pert dies and Dicks secret is revealed, Anna again reclaims her earlier
gender status and relegates herself to a life of misery. The romantic
entanglements that appear from this triangle seem to fit it comfortably
into a rejection of sexual inversion: Dicks rejection of Lottie is depicted
as difficult only because Dick knows that once he reveals his secret he
must give up the life as a man he has made for himself. The homoeroti-
cism that pervades the relationship between Dick and Rupert could
easily be undermined due to the audiences knowledge that Dick is re-
ally Anna. However, Williams simultaneously provides this reading
for her text and resists it. By allowing her audience to have this easy
explanation, she is able to create a much more transgressive character.
As part of what seems her traditional description of a New Woman,
Williams makes it very clear that Anna has many masculine attri-
butes. Anna prefers masculine forms of writing: Her tendencies were
naturally intrinsically masculine, rather than feminine. She enjoyed
reading strong, vigorous, dramatic prose; she loved to write it, whereas
mild twaddle was all she could find a market for at this period, and she
continued to despise it, even while despising the output. She also has a
square, angular figure above the medium height5 which is portrayed
as ungainly and unfeminine; this same figure becomes attractive once

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she becomes Dick. Due to her mannish appearance Rupert is unable

see her as anything but a frienda fact which is sadly recognized by
Anna who develops romantic feelings for him. At the age of twenty-one,
Anna finds that Rupert is the one man in whom she had ever felt more
than a passing interest.6 Throughout the text Williams vacillates be-
tween describing Annas feelings toward Rupert as mild, such as in this
description, and as more impassioned. The latter tend to occur when
the possibility of a relationship is least likely (such as when Rupert
begins to court another woman).
Throughout her unrequited attraction, Anna begins to analyze what
love and romance mean to her for the first time in her life. The narra-
tor explains that love to Anna Marsden was not, as in the case of most
women, the one supreme fact of existence, but merely the means to an
end, and that end personal happiness; her individuality was too strong
to be merged entirely in that of a second person.7 Williams separates
Anna from most women in her desires. This reading could function
easily either as cementing Anna as a New Woman who longs for more
in her life than marriage, or as situating Annas desires as other early
in the text. Bolstering this latter reading is a comment made by the
narrator that immediately precedes this analysis of Annas difference:
Rupert had given her mere friendship, scarcely that, yet, inadvertent-
ly, he had rendered himself essential to her happiness.8 The end goal
of the personal happiness that the narrator defines as Annas ideal of
love is tied to Rupert not because of an erotic attachment, but rather
because of the friendship that he offered her. In a house in which Anna
feels completely alone, Rupert was the first person to extend an of-
fer of amity and it is this initial friendliness which Anna appears to
have misinterpreted as romantic love. Rupert is not just her first male
friend; he is her first and only friend.
Women have treated Anna particularly badly and are mean to her
in a way that men often are not. The narrator describes how Anna had
been relatively isolated from the greater world when she was growing
up with her aunt. It was not until she moved into the boardinghouse
that she experienced the cruel little speeches which the majority of
[women] took delight in making, for the mere pleasure of inflicting
pain, a skill which Anna eventually picked up and used in self-de-
fense. Anna experiences only two forms of interaction with women:
cutting cruelty and a pity which Anna despises. The few women who
seem to talk to her without an intent to cause suffering only do so be-
cause they belong to a Guild the members of which pledged them-

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selves to be kind to everybody indiscriminately.9 Womens reactions to

Anna seem to call for a better, more inclusive feminist movement. All
of the women described in the novel live at the same boardinghouse
as Anna, and thus all have some form of freedom (as they, too, own
the latchkey). Yet they have not progressed to proper New Womanhood
(Anna alone has advanced opinions)they all focus only on feminine
accomplishments such as memorizing the language of flowers and us-
ing this knowledge to try and communicate with lovers.10 The lack of
a community of women separates Anna Marsdens Experiment from
other novels which feature coteries of New Women such as those in
Sarah Grands novels. However, without the alienation and isolation
that surrounded Anna her decision to swap genders may not have been
plausible. Anna sees no alternative way to embrace both aspects of her
personality, and there is no one present who is invested enough in her
life to question her sudden disappearance.

The First Appearance of Gender & Sexual Inversion

Cross-dressing and gendered inversion were not new tropes in New
Woman fiction by 1899 when Williams published her novel. Indeed, one
of the few recurring themes amongst New Woman fiction is the rejec-
tion of normative femininity, and this often occurs through appropriat-
ing male signifiers such as clothing. Because of its frequency in New
Woman literature, it is not also new to discuss either the cross-dressing
or its radical potential. More than fifteen years ago, Ann Heilmann
noted the recurring theme of transvestism [in] New Woman fiction
but argued that while the cross-dressing plot served to destabilize the
category of gender, many feminist writers went to extraordinary (and
never wholly convincing) lengths to clear their heroines of any suspi-
cion of deviance, sexual desire or even heterosexual awareness in their
intimate friendships with men. Heilmann continues in her article to
show the queer potential of these cross-dressing narratives and con-
cludes by arguing that the queer relationships that occurred between
men and the women masquerading as men had two potential mean-
ings: Heterosexual men felt drawn to other men because these men
were really women in drag; conversely, homosexual men masquerading
as straight men confronted the true nature of their desire when fall-
ing in love with other men, irrespective of the fact that they were re-
ally women.11 Heilmanns analysis is astute in discussing the ways in
which men were sexually implicated in their relationships with cross-
dressing women; however, what this concluding remark ignores is the

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sexuality of the women in these interactions. That is due both to her

earlier assertion that the New Woman authors worked against their
female characters being read as sexually deviant and the fact that
the characters she discusses all ultimately see themselves as women.
Grands Angelica from The Heavenly Twins perhaps provides the only
instance which works against this reading, as she claims that she felt
exactly like a boy when she dresses as one. Yet despite this claim, she
always returned to her life as a woman at the end of each episode of
crossing.
Williamss novel and characterization of Anna/Dick work against
these readings that proliferate in New Woman criticism. Dick only be-
comes Anna again when there is no possibility of remaining Dick, not
because of any desire to return to a true gender expression. And, most
importantly, Dicks relationship with Rupert has a completely one-sided
sexual desire. Rupert is neither the straight man really attracted to
a woman, nor a closeted gay man who believes he desires a man. The
queer desire that pervades the novel emanates solely from Anna/Dick
(and, admittedly, Lotties attraction to Dick); while this queerness is
in some way clearly due to her cross-dressing, it also seems to exceed
her intentional gender presentation. Anna/Dick does not seem to alter
much in herself when she introduces herself as Dick; she seems to have
always embodied an intermediary gendered state.
This total rejection of a gendered binary is part of what sets Anna
Marsdens Experiment apart from Halls The Well of Loneliness. Much
has been said about the overt reliance on sexual inversion in Halls
text; the bulk of the essays in Laura Doan and Jay Prossers excellent
collection on Halls novel, Palatable Poison, focus on the role of inver-
sion within the text. The focus on the sexual inversion seems to im-
ply scholars acceptance of the gender binary that is necessary for this
novels main argument to exist. In an article on the role of horses in
the novels use of inversion, Mary Armstrong writes that of course, The
Well is so dependent upon gender binaries that (whether we find the
novel gender-conservative or gender-radical) textual erotics may ap-
pear to be exclusively organized by the masculine/feminine binary.12
Deborah Cohler explains that Hall relies on the inclusion of the gen-
tleman invert-the aristocratic, mannish, homosexual womanwithin
a transhistorically constant construction of British masculinity.13 Ste-
phens role in The Well of Loneliness does not upset normative views of
gender in the way that Anna/Dick does. Nor does Anna/Dick seem to
be easily classified as homosexualshe clearly desires men, but this

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desire is not purely heterosexual as she is not a cisgendered woman.

Anna/Dick exceeds both gender and sexual inversion while Halls novel
seems intent upon keeping the status quo of both gender and sexual
inversion while upsetting the primacy of heteronormative sexuality.

Neither Masculine nor Feminine

When Anna realizes that her future holds the most promise if she is
a man, she rapidly enacts a scheme that will allow Anna to disappear
and Dick to appear. At first, Dick is utterly happy and at home in his
presentation as a man. After completing his first day at the boarding-
house, he returns to his old rooms:
[A]nd locked the door, with a breath of profound relief. Then he threw him-
self into the worn easy-chair, with a womans abandon, a gesture of exulta-
tion, arms flung over his head.
The worst of the ordeal is over, he murmured, and not one of the crowd
suspects me. Anna Marsdens cousin, Richard Ward, bids fair to prove
a greater success socially than Anna Marsden. I have burned my boats.
There can be no drawing back, even if I were not in love with my new
identityand I am.14

Although Dick is much happier and more productive as a man than as

a woman, he would be even more so if there were a larger spectrum
that he could fall in which was not reliant on a binary for identifying
both those who fit (feminine women and masculine men) and those
who do not (masculine women and feminine men). In this passage, the
narrator highlights Dicks womans abandon while sustaining mas-
culine pronouns. The language used here points to the instability of
gender presentation in this era. Dick may be in love with his identity,
but he still uses womens gestures in private. Later in the novel, he
still thoroughly enjoys his new identity, but he often finds excuses for
his more feminine tendencies. He does not enjoy the club, staying out
late, or drinking. While these habits are clearly not the sole markers
of appropriate masculinity, his aversion to these activities is worthy of
remark by both the narrator and his housemate, Rupert.
This inability to act successfully as either man or woman is inte-
gral to understanding the gender politics at play here. As Anna Mars-
den, she is too masculine to be adopted into society. As Richard Ward,
he is described as rather feminine. Upon acquiring a new living situ-
ation with his friend, Rupert Deane, Dick rearranges the furniture in
their shared sitting room. This change does not go unnoticed by Ru-
pert: What a handy young beggar you are, he observed to his com-

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panion. Why, this room looks precisely as if a woman had arranged

it. Dick also blushed like a girl when explaining that he does not
drink.15 After living together for many months, Rupert noticed theres
a feminine instinct about you, dear boy a Je ne sais quoi which I can
appreciate without being able to define.15 Later on, as Rupert is dying,
Dick nurses him better than any female nurse could have done. This
nurturing, nesting image of Richard does not serve to emasculate him;
rather, he is accepted as being a slightly odd boy.
Despite Dicks acceptance within society as a man, there does seem
to be something about him that is not fully manly. Anna is twenty-
one, the age of majority, and so it seems fair to assume Dick is the same
age. Yet he is often discussed as being a boy by the narrator and other
characters. Part of this may be due to his coldness toward women
Rupert believes that Dicks lack of attraction to any of the women be-
trays his status as a nave country youth. The narrator, too, encourages
this view of Dick as a boy rather than a man. Upon returning home
from a date with Lottie, Rupert enters to see a boyish figure, sleeping
soundly in the easy chair.16 The narrator had earlier described Anna
in very masculine terms, so in one sense this is the logical extension of
that appearance. Yet Dick does not appear here as a man, or as an ef-
feminate man or boy. He is merely boyish. The lack of agency for Dick
within this scene also speaks to an innate boyishness on Annas part.
His hair is still short and he is still in masculine attire, but there is no
other attempt to pass as a man. In a state of vulnerability, and with a
lack of dissimulation, Anna/Dick is inherently boyish. The suffix ish
is also important here; the Oxford English Dictionary explains that,
when modifying a noun, this ending adds the sense of or belonging
to a person or thing, of the nature or character.17 Anna/Dicks nature
is displayed as innately masculine. The text does not shy away from
commenting on Dicks feminine habits; therefore Williams could have
narrated this sleeping appearance as another moment of femininity
without disrupting Dicks overall ability to pass. Instead, Williams en-
sures that her audience knows that even in repose, there is something
about Anna which is inherently masculine.
The length to which Williams goes to make sure that her audience
reads Anna as masculinized is undercut by the use of gendered pro-
nouns. Although Dick passes as a man for most of the text, he is almost
always referred to with the feminine pronoun. As is evidenced in other
texts such as Lady Florence Dixies Gloriana, gendered pronouns can
be switched in this period to reflect the gendered presentation of the

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referent. Although both Anna and the titular Gloriana end their respec-
tive novels as women, Anna does not marry nor is there any hint that
she will do so. Perhaps, then, this was why Dixie was able to make her
character more fully accepted as a male through the use of masculine
pronouns. For Anna there was no saving marriage or focus on the gran-
diose effects of her transformation from woman-to-man-to-woman as in
Dixies novel. At the end of Williamss novel, when Anna is forced to out
herself, she merely returns to her unfulfilling life. Therefore, although
Anna is somewhat returned to a realm of heteronormative gender, she
still stands outside as a non-(re)productive member of society. In or-
der to make this return more palatable to an audience, Williams trod
the line of gendering very carefully. Anna is depicted as unable to live
fully as either woman or man. She can appear innately boyish while
still retaining her status as a she. The feminine pronouns throughout
may also point toward the limits for Anna that remain when she is
Dick. Despite her appearance and male characteristics, she is not fully
encapsulated within he-ness. There is something about her that is
other, that cannot be safely incorporated into the constraining he/she
binary on either side.
This view of Anna/Dick as existing outside of the gender binary, con-
tainable neither in masculinity nor in femininity, can also be seen in
the way that Williams constructs Annas sexuality. Early in the novel
we learn that although she prefers the company of men to women, she
had never felt any affection for a man. This changes once she meets
Rupert Deane. Anna believes that she is in love with himthe first
man to show her any attention. Throughout the novel, her feelings for
Deane seem a bit confused. At times she internally recognizes her love
for him, at others acknowledging that she merely loves him as a friend.
After her first day as a man, she thinks to herself that as a man she is
fated to achieve resultRupert Deanes friendship, for instance, since
I am far too sexless to crave, as some women do, for love. This sex-
lessness is belied several pages later once she has spent more time
with Rupert as a man: Daily, hourly intercourse with Rupert Deane
under her assumed identity had convinced Anna there was more pas-
sion, more sexual susceptibility, in her nature than she had once imag-
ined.18 What had begun when she was a woman as a light crush for
the first man who had paid her any attention has become a sexual pas-
sion once she becomes a man. Although the time spent with Rupert
as man and woman is pleasant for Anna, it pales in comparison with
the intercourse she shares with Rupert as between two men. Because

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of her status as one beyond the narrow confines of man or woman,

her sexual attraction to Rupert is innately queer. Williams makes this
clear through examples like the one depicted above, in which Anna sees
her own sexual attraction for Rupert as one that is mediated through
her masculinity.
Discussion of Anna/Dick as either homosexual or heterosexual in the
way we understand these terms today would be chronologically inaccu-
rate, and the text itself resists these easy definitions. Her attraction to
Rupert is one that is based in her understanding of her gender as both
masculine/male and feminine/female. She does not, as in other novels,
see herself as a woman who is attracted to a man despite her appear-
ance as a man. Her attire and gender presentation are not barriers
that must be overcome in order to have a fulfilling relationship with
Rupert. Instead, it is key to the interactions that she has with Rupert
and to her own attraction to him. That the novel also rejects any het-
erosexual pairings also seems to hint that the readers are not meant
to interpret Anna/Dick and Ruperts relationship as being really het-
erosexualthey have no relationship as cis-man and cis-woman, and
there is not even a model of a successful heterosexual pairing to aspire
to for any of the characters. Anna/Dicks attraction is not just queer
because it exists outside the heteronormative fantasy of marriage and
childrearing, but also because her gendered and sexual identities are
constructed outside of the gendered binary which bars easily identifi-
able male/female or male/male sexual attraction.

Sexology & Anna/Dick

Williamss narrative often seems to function in response to the pe-
riods sexology, which is reliant on male/female, male/male, and female/
female models of sexual attraction.19 In the 1894 English translation
of Richard von Krafft-Ebings Psychopathia Sexualis, cross-dressing is
only discussed in relation to its impact on homosexuality and psychi-
cal hermaphroditism. He describes the feeling, thought and the whole
character of those who do not correspond with the sex which the in-
dividual represents anatomically and physiologically, remarking that
this abnormal mode of feeling may not infrequently be recognized in
the manner, dress, and calling of the individuals, who may go so far
as to yield to an impulse to don the distinctive clothing corresponding
with the sexual role in which they feel themselves to be. Krafft-Ebing
lists the degrees of development of the sexual instinct in those who
pass, including only:

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1. Traces of heter-sexual, with predominating homo-sexual, instinct (psy-

cho-sexual hermaphroditism).

2. There exists inclination only toward the same sex (homo-sexuality).

3. The entire mental existence is altered to correspond with the abnormal

sexual instinct (effemination and viraginity).
4. The form of the body approaches that which corresponds to the abnor-
mal sexual instinct. However, actual transitions to hermaphrodites never
occur, but, on the contrary, completely differentiated genitals; so that, just
as in all pathological perversions of the sexual life, the cause must be
sought in the brain (androgyny and gynandry).20

In this progression, Krafft-Ebing allows no space for women who iden-

tify as men who are not attracted to women. Nor for men who identify
as women who are not attracted to men. Anna/Dick is ejected from
the sexology that seeks to understand and identify the characteris-
tics of the women who feel themselves to be male.21 In contradistinc-
tion to the female Urnings and viragos, Anna rejects the company of
women and seems to despise them, instead preferring the company
of men. The affinity that she feels for men, however, is not based in
their shared appreciation for womens beauty (as would be predicted
in Krafft-Ebings model). Unlike what one would expect coming from a
sexological discourse, in Anna Marsdens Experiment it does not seem
impossible for Anna/Dick to be like men and simultaneously be at-
tracted to them. Nor does Anna/Dick function like a male Urning. This
figure is painted as effeminate in Krafft-Ebings writing; thus Annas
predilection toward masculine writing habits is, again, in contradis-
tinction to this figure. Williamss depiction of Anna as a woman who
feels herself to be male (to borrow from Krafft-Ebing) yet does not ap-
preciate the company of women has no place in the established science
that sought to categorize, define, and describe gender and sexuality.
Just as Anna/Dick cannot be clearly brought into a realm of norma-
tive gendering, her sexuality falls outside the established models as
well. Anna Marsdens Experiment does not merely borrow from log-
ics of inversion in order to hypothesize a gender-inverted heterosexual
woman as other New Woman novels have been accused of doing. One
example of Anna/Dicks existence outside of the dominant understand-
ings of sexuality is her relationship with Rupert. Annas attraction to
him initially appears to cement her sexual attraction to men and ex-
clude her from true inversion. Anna is figured as being only attracted
to Rupert, yet she plays with the notion of flirting with women once
she becomes Dick. Although women avoided Anna as Richard Ward,

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this indifference gave place to more or less avowed interest.22 Anna/

Dick is still not seen as particularly attractive, but Richard Wards
ugliness was of the kind which attracts rather than repels showing
the perversity of women and men regarding the concept of beauty. Be-
cause of this change of feeling about her looks, looks which remain not
only the same but still coded as ugly, Anna/Dick becomes amused by
inspiring romantic affection in those who had formerly ignored her.
Richard offered some flowers to Flo Brightling, who wore them all eve-
ning, at which some of the other girls looked jealous and Lottie Thorne
sulky.23 This action causes strife between Flo and Lottie, whom Anna/
Dick had encouraged by going boating together, and the girls begin to
bicker jealously. The narrator remarks that the fact of being able to set
new forces in motion inspired a sense of power and free will, almost de-
stroying previous fatalistic theories on the part of this daring mortal. It
is one thing, however, to rouse a force, and another to guide and control
its workings when once set in motion.24 Implied in the interactions
that Anna/Dick has with women is the notion of frivolous play. Anna/
Dick does not actually seem to be genuinely attracted to these women,
but rather merely enjoys being able to inspire romantic feelings in an-
other for the first time.
As a man, Anna/Dick is able to interact with all of the people
around her more productively. Neither Annas motives for emphasiz-
ing her masculinity nor her comfort as a man is predicted in Ellis and
Symondss Sexual Inversion. When discussing the masculinity of in-
verted women, Ellis first notes that in the inverted woman the mascu-
line traits are part of an organic instinct which she by no means always
wishes to accentuate. The inverted womans masculine element may in
the least degree consist only in the fact that she makes advances to the
woman to whom she is attracted.25 The primary reason for women to
adopt masculinity is in order to forward their relationships with other
women. Although Anna/Dick is able to interact more comfortably with
other women when passing as a man, this comes as a surprise to her
and thus is clearly not her primary goal. Also based on Elliss explana-
tion of inversion, one would expect Anna/Dick to be popular amongst
women and avoid men: The inverted woman treats all men in a cool,
direct manner, which may not exclude comradeship, but which excludes
every sexual relationship, whether of passion or merely coquetry. As a
rule the inverted woman feels absolute indifference towards men, and
not seldom repulsion. And this feeling, as a rule, is instinctively recip-
rocated by men.26 Instead of describing Annas relationship with men,

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Elliss rule is more easily applied to Annas relationships with wom-

en. Although she does not have any real friends in her boardinghouse,
Anna (as a woman) prefers the company of men and repulses and is re-
pulsed by the other women. The men in the house are not particularly
attracted to Anna; however, they are not repulsed by her.
What emerges from reading Anna/Dick against the science of sex-
ology that seeks to present the details of non-normative sexuality and
gender is that Anna/Dick is completely unaccounted for. Although her
gender is inverted, she contains none of the other markers of inverted
sexuality. Yet she is neither encompassed in normative heterosexuality.
Williams depicts Anna/Dick as being happiest and most comfortable
when living as a man, yet this is not in the service of courting women;
rather, Anna/Dick functions as a gender-fluid man who is attracted to
other men. She is not entirely properly gendered as a man, as she
still retains feminine interests and gestures. Her attraction to men is
not universal, however, as it is only Rupert who instills a sense of pas-
sion in Anna/Dick. The queerness of this character then exceeds any
representations either in the sexological or fictional literature of the
time. Anna/Dick is a more radical character than either her New Wom-
an contemporaries or the lesbians who would appear in the modern-
ist literature decades later. Although she is not the pure invert like
Radclyffe Halls Stephen Gordon, she emerges as a distinct and utterly
new character and opens up avenues for queer women in literature.
Despite the gender and sexual possibilities that Williams envisions
through Anna/Dick, Williams seems incapable of imagining a world in
which this character could succeed.

Queerness & Failure

The very existence of Dick indirectly causes the death of Rupert
and closes off the heterosexual possibilities that emerge in the begin-
ning of the narrative. Anna herself seems inevitably barred from any
erotic attachment due to her plainness and masculinity, so the way
the novel ends, with her spinsterhood, is not particularly shocking de-
spite this not-inevitable conclusion. Without Dicks entrance into the
small world of the boardinghouse to make the romantic waters murky,
Rupert would likely have married Lottie. Instead of allowing this het-
eronormative ending, Dick becomes attached to Rupert and forms a
very real barrier to this conclusion as Lotties attraction to Dick blocks
Rupert in his romantic quest, making literally true Judith Halbers-
tams comment that the queer subject stands between heterosexual

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optimism and its realization.27 After Ruperts marriage proposal to

Lottie is rejected, he wanders around London in the rain and catches
the illness that will later kill him. In order to alleviate Ruperts suffer-
ing, Dick reveals his true identity to Lottie in order to kill her love
for him. Lottie then meets Rupert on his deathbed to give the dying
man some comfort. However, Dicks revelation comes too late to allow
for any hetero-pairings, and Rupert dies in Dicks arms. The end of the
novel comes shortly after; Dick becomes Anna once again, and the last
scene of the novel depicts Anna planting flowers on Ruperts grave.
The fatal end of this novel, with Rupert in his grave and Anna sitting
atop it planting flowers, lends itself particularly well to a queer read-
ing. Both Lee Edelman and Halberstam have written on the failure/
fatality of queerness. In No Future Edelman discusses the role of re-
productive futurity and queer resistance to the heteronormative push
toward a cyclical teleology. Through reproductive futurism, there is an
insistence on a recurring cycle (birth, courtship, marriage, and then
starting over once again with childbearing) that forms the central hold
on most narratives. This endless cycle confirms the telos of progression
as each new incarnation of the cycle is imagined as building on the
last. Queerness through its rejection of this homogenizing narrative
disrupts reproductive futurity and its insistence on the hopefulness
and inevitability of the future: Far from partaking of this narrative
movement towards a viable political future, far from perpetuating the
fantasy of meanings eventual realization, the queer comes to figure
the bar to every realization of futurity, the resistance, internal to the
social, to every social structure or form.28 One might assume from the
title that Anna Marsdens experiment would have been a successful
one; or, barring that, that Anna might have been reclaimed back into
the heteronormative expectations that she initially rejects. Williams
does neither as, to borrow from Edelman, the novel quite effectively
bars the realization of futurity. The death at the end of the novel
signifies the death of not only the queer future that Anna Marsden had
hoped for, but also the death of the normative hetero-romantic telos.
Despite the queer success of ending a novel about queerness with
the ultimate rejection of heteronormativitys most obvious evidence (a
child and the future it represents), the novels end is very much one of
failure. Halberstams The Queer Art of Failure takes Edelmans argu-
ment which strands queerness between two equally unbearable op-
tions (futurity and positivity in opposition to nihilism and negation)
and instead pushes for models of failure that do not posit between two

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equally bleak alternatives.29 Anna Marsdens Experiment is precisely

a model of failure that blocks the insistence on reproductive futurity
while not negating the future. The future, albeit a child-free one, is
hinted at through the flowers that Anna plants on Ruperts grave. Even
though there will be a future, Annas confession that it will seem aw-
fully stupid after her experiences as a man makes it clear that this is
no happy, hopeful ending. The experiment succeeded (Anna passed as
Dick until she willingly abandoned her role), and yet that Anna ulti-
mately failed will merely carry on with the results as she must. The
ending of the novel, indeed the entire novel, seems to presage Halber-
stams notion of failure as powerful and meaningful in and of itself. In
the introduction to The Queer Art of Failure, Halberstam remarks that
where feminine success is always measured by male standards, and
gender failure often means being relieved of the pressure to measure
up to patriarchal ideals, not succeeding at womanhood can offer unex-
pected pleasures.30 Anna begins the novel failing at womanhood; how-
ever, she ends the novel failing at manhood. Her expulsion from the
dual-sexed and gendered system shows the flaws within this system.
There is not yet any hopeful idea of success for Anna, merely a novel
that upholds failure as potentially pleasurable and worthy.

Flowers & Pets as Ciphers

Williams makes it explicit that her audience needs to be savvy in
the reading of symbols throughout the text in order to fully under-
stand the novel. This is initially shown through the use of flowers by
the other women in Annas boardinghouse, especially Lottie and Flo.
After collecting and giving flowers to both Rupert and Dick, Lottie re-
marks: Flowers have a language of their own, you know.31 The text
had already made previous comments on specific flowers and the act of
giving of flowers, so this interjection by Lottie accomplishes two things.
First, and most literally, she is telling the men what she thinks of them
through her choice of flowers and wants to ensure that her message
will be understood. Second, Williams is letting her readers know that
she will assume they have knowledge of how symbols have functioned
as a subversive sort of language. This comment appears relatively late
in the text and alerts readers to the idea that to properly understand
the novel as a whole, and not just this specific floral exchange, they
will need to read the novel in its entirety with an eye to telling details.
This specific moment of flowers is explained in the text when Rupert
learns from The Language of Flowers that his flowers have meant in-

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difference whereas the moss-rose that Dick received means love on

the part of the giver. Although this instance of the meaning of flowers
is spelled out for readers, looking back through the novel it becomes
apparent that Williams was using these symbols before making sure
her audience was reading her text accurately. Not long before Lottie
gifts Rupert and Dick with her floral message she appears in a cream
dress and hat with a few scarlet geraniums32 for color, a flower which
means stupidity.33 These flowers match her personality well; howev-
er, this is clearly not a message which Lottie would have chosen for her-
self. By looking back through the text in this way, Williamss intention
for her readers to decode the symbols available to them is apparent.
Although this is most obvious in her floral language, it is also evident
in her use of animals.
Following Monica Flegels study of the role of pets within domestic-
ity and queer relations, the appearance of Ruperts dog, Nap, halfway
through the text ought to be read as a signifier to the audience of the
impossibility of a heteronormative end. The first mention of Nap is af-
ter the failure of the play that Rupert and Dick have written. The play
itself has already been identified in the text as the two mens child:
The child of our brain will do credit to us yet, Dick. It is not fated to
perish still-born.34 The identification of literature as a child is not new,
but Ruperts labelling of it as such when it has two fathers is rather
novel. After this shared progeny fails in its public reception the two
men return to their shared home to commiserate over their failure. The
dog then enters the room potentially becoming a new child for the two
men. Flegel identifies many such sources in Victorian fiction in which
animals serve as de facto children for their human owners/parents.
This sort of identification would have been common by the end of the
century, and would have signaled to the audience the lack of human
children that Dick and Rupert could create. Animals are often useful in
Victorian novels through their eventual replacement by childrenit is
a sign of rejection of heteronormative ends for this replacement to not
take place.
According to Flegel, dogs function as de facto male[s], underscoring
mens need for homosociality. Therefore the dog could provide much-
needed masculine companionship within the domestic space thus
providing a masculine retreat within domesticity. Flegel also argues
for the man/dog relationship as a form of romantic friendship.35 The
dog in this narrative is not mentioned while Rupert lives at a board-
inghouse with men and women. Naps entrance in the text appears

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when Rupert already thinks himself ensconced in a homosocial form of

domesticity (Dicks feminine tidying of their shared space aside). Nap
then heightens the perceived homosociality of this space and actually
forms part of an erotic triangle between the two men. In his entrance
to the novel, Nap licked the limp, nerveless hand hanging down over
the old sofa. It was a mournful trio.36 The description of Ruperts hand
as limp and nerveless seems to serve as an obvious parallel for a flaccid
penis. Naps attempt to cheer Rupert by licking this appendage then
seems full of homoerotic tension for this (apparently) all-male trio. Ru-
pert had hoped to end the night with Lottie, the woman he is attracted
to, but instead enters this homosocial space. The replacement of his
heterosexual hopes for a romantic night with Lottie with a homoso-
cial space, which Nap turns into both an all-male erotic triangle and
a symbol of male domestic familial space, signals to the audience in
no uncertain terms that there will be no heteronormative end for this
novel. Although within the narrative the dog is a living, sentient being,
Nap functions as a commodity that cements the bonds between these
two men. Nap rarely interjects himself into the narrative in a volitional
way; instead, he appears as slightly more than decoration. His pur-
pose seems singularly intended to identify the male homoeroticism of
a space filled ostensibly by a man and a woman, underscoring the need
to read Anna/Dick as a queer man.

Contemporary Reception
Before releasing it, the publishers seem to have advertised the novel
as a story about rational dress, and two early notices of the book in
periodicals mention this rather than any actual plot point. On 3 May
1899, the Sheffield Daily Telegraph mentioned that The members of
the Rational Dress Association will no doubt be interested in a new
novel by Miss Ellen Williams the plot of the story, we are informed,
shows a remarkable development of the rational dress theory.37 The
Speaker issued an even shorter notice three days later, also only men-
tioning the relevance of the novel to rational dress. By July, when re-
viewers were able to read the full novel, all mention of rational dress
disappears. The reception turns largely to discuss how new the core
idea of the novel is. The Spectator largely compiles its review as a series
of quotes from other newspapers, writing that
Miss Ellen Williams is, says the Critic, a powerful story, unconventional
as regards both subject and treatment. This situation is handled with
extraordinary delicacy and skill, and the book is an admirable study of

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repressed emotions.[sic] The Western Morning News says it is a smartly

written and deeply interesting story well out of the beaten track of the
novelist. A very natural and interesting tale is, says the Echo, carefully
set forth in Ellen Williamss clever little book.38

Lloyds Weekly Newspaper writes that there is a somewhat novel idea

worked out in an interesting fashion in this book.39 The newness that
these reviews all comment on is worthy of discussion as, at first glance,
this novel could pass as a rather conventional New Woman novel in
which there is a masculine woman, masculine dress, and, to borrow
from Lloyds Weekly Newspaper, the end is pathetic, and the book
generally is pessimistic and saddening in tone.40 Yet none of the
reviews mention these generic elements, and instead all focus on the
new direction that Williams takes in her novel. Despite the pessi-
mistic end, this novel then seems to clearly offer an alternative for
gender-queer women instead of the more stereotypical option of ratio-
nal dress. Nor does this novel idea seem negative in any of the reviews
mentionedall seem to laud Williamss unique vision.
All of the reviews were not so positive, however, as some instead fo-
cus hostilely on the radical queer underpinnings of the narrative. The
Athenaeum takes the strongest stance against the perversity of the
novel:
This crudely improbable and morbid little tale is obviously the work of a
most inexperienced writer. Her heroine, a plain and unattractive girl, is
enabled, by disguising herself in male garments, to become the admired
friend of her unsuspecting former associates, and to solace her unrequited
love by living as a bachelor companion with the object of it. Comment is
obviously superfluous. Nevertheless, the writer may produce a readable
book at some future time.41

The use of the adjective morbid speaks to the reviewers understand-

ing that this novels themes are what we would today label as queer.
Any comment is made superfluous through the obvious disgust and
disdain which pervade this review; the early comment that the au-
thor is most inexperienced seems to be undercut by the last sentence
which speaks to the authors promise. The revulsion of the queer plot
seems to be the primary cause for the reviewer to see the author as
inexperienced, as the last line appears to begrudgingly admit that if
Williams takes on a different plot the resulting book would be read-
able. This does not seem in itself like high praise, but given the tone
of the rest of the review it actually appears kinder than what might be
expected. Between this and the other reviews which largely laud Wil-
liams on her writing skill, it becomes evident that the primary concern

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was the radical notion that gender might not clearly binary, and that
it might be easier to bend gender than the Athenaeum reviewer might
wish.

Ellen Williamss only novel builds on the generic conventions of New
Woman novels in order to interject a radically queer character who
first appears to follow the normative paths of cross-dressing within
the genre. Upon closer inspection, it becomes evident that this novel
plays with audience assumptions and sexological discourse in order to
show the limits that still existed within this growing pseudo-science.
Anna/Dick is ultimately ejected from the queer life that she builds for
herself; however, her failure is not due to her inability to pass as a
man. Instead, she gives up her project in order to make her male love
happy, although he never learns of her sacrifice. Perhaps this sacrificial
element is meant to display how thorough Anna/Dicks success might
have been if not for the (feminine) gendered pressure to renounce ones
own desires to please men. Annas ability to successfully pass as a man
in society and in her profession does not here seem to serve the New
Woman agenda of proving womens capability alongside men. Instead,
this is a unique narrative about one particular woman who cannot find
her place as a woman within her restrictive society. The novel does
not end with promises of future possibility and happiness, nor with
the fatal end otherwise common to New Women characters. Williams
ends with an image of her protagonist alive on the grave of her lover,
resigned to a fate of dissatisfaction.
Williams successfully critiques the limited understanding of gender
in New Woman fiction, sexology, and British society in general. Anna/
Dick cannot be contained or understood singularly as a heterosexual
woman, an inverted woman, a heterosexual man, or an inverted man.
She contains elements that are associated with each of these figures
but exists beyond the binary man/woman sexologists relied on in their
effort to understand dissident sexualities. Although they found a place
in their study for intersex people, there is no legible trans identity.
Williams, without access to the language we have in the twenty-first
century, envisioned the gaps in this literature and their effects on those
who do not fit in neat boundaries. An academic reclaiming of this novel
not only allows for a greater understanding of lesbian/gay/bisexual/
trans characters in historical literature, but also provides an excellent
case study in the connections between the sexual anarchy of the fin

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de sicle and the nonnormative female experience in early twentieth-

century modernist fiction.

Notes
1. Ellen Williams, Anna Marsdens Experiment (London: Greening & Co., 1899), 1, 7.
2. Ibid., 35.
3. Heike Bauer, Theorizing Female Inversion: Sexology, Discipline, and Gender at the Fin de
Sicle, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 18.1 (2009), 99.
4. Taking the nickname Dick speaks to Annas desire to acquire one of the few elements of
maleness that would otherwise be barred to her. According to John S. Farmer and W. E. Henleys
1891 Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present: A Dictionary, Historical and Comparative, of the
Heterodox Speech of All Classes of Society for More Than Three Hundred Years with Synonyms in Eng-
lish, French, German, Italian, etc. (London: Printed for Subscribers Only, 18901904) both dick and
dicky were already synonyms for penis (208, 280). It is not clear exactly how extensively known
these slang terms would have been, but their title claims that these would have been known across
classes. It therefore seems likely that Williams would be aware of her double entendre in providing
Anna with a masculine name which means penis, especially as nearly a decade would have passed
between the publication of this slang dictionary and Williamss novel.
5. Williams, Anna Marsdens Experiment, 6, 3.
6. Ibid., 20.
7. Ibid., 34.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 910, 14.
10. Ibid., 9.
11. Ann Heilmann, (Un)Masking Desire: Cross-dressing and the Crisis of Gender in New Woman
Fiction, Journal of Victorian Culture, 5.1 (2000), 93, 107.
12. Mary Armstrong, Stable Identity: Horses, Inversion Theory, and The Well of Loneliness, Lit-
erature Interpretation Theory, 19 (2008), 49.
13. Deborah Cohler, Citizen, Invert, Queer: Lesbianism and War in Early Twentieth-Century Brit-
ain (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 159.
14. Williams, Anna Marsdens Experiment, 53.
15. Ibid., 74, 51, 150.
16. Ibid., 89.
17. -ish, suffix 1. OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2014.
18. Williams, Anna Marsdens Experiment, 55, 77.
19. There is almost nothing known about Ellen Williams, and thus it is currently impossible to
know definitely how much sexology she might have read. However, she carefully begins her novel
by establishing her awareness of contemporary views on the New Woman. Combining this extensive
knowledge with the detail that she provides in this transgressive narrative, it seem unlikely that
she would be conversant with the writing of the New Women and not with sexological texts (which
the New Women themselves were often in conversation with, literally in the case of Olive Schreiners
work with Havelock Ellis on his study).
20. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, trans. Charles Gilbert Chaddock, 7th ed.
(Philadelphia: The F. A. Davis Company Publishers, 1894), 222, 22223.
21. Ibid., 280.

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22. Williams, Anna Marsdens Experiment, 64.

23. Ibid., 45, 64.
24. Ibid., 65.
25. Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds, Sexual Inversion (London: Wilson and Macmil-
lan, 1897), 88.
26. Ibid.
27. Judith Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 106.
28. Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham: Duke University Press,
2004), 4.
29. Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure, 120.
30. Ibid., 4.
31. Williams, Anna Marsdens Experiment, 125.
32. Ibid., 133, 134, 118.
33. Kate Greenway, The Language of Flowers (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1884), 19.
34. Williams, Anna Marsdens Experiment, 101.
35. Monica Flegel, Pets and Domesticity in Victorian Literature and Culture: Animality, Queer Rela-
tions, and the Victorian Family (New York: Routledge, 2015), 101, 102.
36. Williams, Anna Marsdens Experiment, 111.
37. Literary Notes, The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 3 May 1899, 3.
38. Books Worth Reading, The Spectator, 15 July 1899, 103.
39. Literature, Lloyds Weekly Newspaper, 2 July 1899, 11.
40. Ibid.
41. New Novels, The Athenaeum, 22 July 1899, 124.

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permission.