(As a benchmark, it’s useful to remember that the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the vote, was not enacted until 1920.) The matter of women’s rights, however, is very much still a live issue. So one could say, in a sense (and of course in a sense only) that the issue of slavery has been dealt with. (Though as we will see, to call this a “crusading” novel would be a considerable error.) As TB opens, the Civil War has been recently over. The main characters (well, two of them) are intimately involved in this. In Henry James’ The Bostonians - the subject of this review - we see a social movement not only discussed, but actually serving as the centerpiece of the novel. In Phineas Finn (1869), by Anthony Trollope - one of my favorite authors - male suffrage (forget about the female variety) is discussed, along with the Irish tenant-right movement. There is, of course, Dickens with his crusading against abuses such as debtor’s prison, and the mistreatment of orphans. But then again, many other novels do delve into this region to one extent or another. Many novels do not treat of social movements, and the need for change in society.
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