'The Busiest Man in England': Grant Allen and the Writing Trade, 1875–1900, and: Grant Allen: Literature and Cultural Politics at the Fin de Siècle (review)

Literature and Cultural Politics at the Fin de Siècle, william Greenslade and terence rodgers argue, in fact, that the emphasis on Allen as the author of The Woman Who Did has "skewed subsequent commentary and has almost certainly contributed to making it less possible to see Allen plainly as a versatile fin-de-siècle progressive and writer" (2). while some of the contributors to the collection indeed regard Allen as a forward-thinking radical, others represent him as ultimately conservative. (the articles-by scholars in literature, cultural studies, and history-grew out of a conference.) Allen's own refrain that he was reduced to writing for the market recurs frequently in the volume, becoming one of its unifying themes. Lyssa randolph uses Pierre Bourdieu on cultural capital to argue that Allen authenticated his writing by connecting it to his scientific reputation, thereby lending authority to his views on the new woman and interracial marriage.\n His first books were on topics in physiological psychology, and he published a series of articles in Mind, so the lack of sustained attention to that work represents a gap in the collection.