Women Without Men

Women Without Men Said Lady Astor last week to the British House of Commons: "We have always had superiority. . . . All we want now is equality. . . ." Lady Astor was speaking of women. In literature, of course, women have always been inferior to men in the quantity and quality of their writing. Some of them have written entertaining letters, diaries or confessions; they have been good at text books for small children, verses and hymns to God. Disguised in pseudonyms like George Sand or George Eliot, a few of them have scribbled novels. But now it becomes apparent that female writers are legion and are writing with or without pen-names all manner of fantastic letters.

If masculine names for female writers were once conventional necessities, they are now both unnecessary and undeceptive. They add, however, to what is known as feminine mystery, and for this reason women use them whenever possible. One woman, in fact, has no fewer than three aliases which she uses on various occasions, though always for the same reason. She is Mrs. Lily Moresby Beck, who writes fictional biography as E. Barrington; oriental philosophy as L. Adams Beck; and magazine articles as L . Moresby. Herewith reviews of two of her books and of some by other women.