The Fabrication of the Late-Victorian Femme Fatale: The Kiss of Death

By Rebecca Stott

Book Overview

This book examines the rise of the femme fatale as a prominant fictional type in late nineteenth-century British culture. As a stereotype she has been 'fabricated', that is to say constructed as a 'figure in the carpet' of the fin-de-si cle. The book argues that Rider Haggard's She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, Bram Stoker's female vampires and Conrad's destructive Malayan or African women, even Hardy's Tess, are all caught up in a series of late nineteenth-century contexts: biological determinism, imperialism, race, theories about female sexuality, degeneration and evolutionary theory.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0333556127
• ISBN13: 9780333556122
• Release Date: November 1992
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"