Constance Howell

Constance Howell was a novelist and socialist.

Like many contemporary political novelists like Clementina Black and Margaret Harkness, Howell's novels sometimes suffered from political critique.[1] Her most well-known novel was A More Excellent Way (1888), which is thought to be semi-autobiographical; it recounts the 'counter-conversion' of the protagonist Agatha Hathaway away from Christianity towards freethought.[2] It was reviewed harshly in The Spectator.[3]

Howell also wrote a series of three books for children during the 1880s, which explained elements of Western religious history from a critical freethinking perspective: Biography of Jesus Christ, The After Life of the Apostles and History of the Jews.[4]

  1. ^ Hapgood, Lynne (1996). "The Novel and Political Agency: Socialism and the Work of Margaret Harkness, Constance Howell and Clementina Black: 1888–1896". Literature & History. 5 (2): 37–52. doi:10.1177/030619739600500203 – via Sage.
  2. ^ Schwartz, Laura (2013). Infidel Feminism: Secularism, Religion and Women's Emancipation, England 1830-1914. Manchester University Press. p. 91. ISBN 9781526130662.
  3. ^ "A More Excellent Way, by Constance Howell (Sonnenschein), is so » 6 Oct 1888 » The Spectator Archive". The Spectator Archive. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
  4. ^ Schwartz, Laura (2013). Infidel Feminism: Secularism, Religion and Women's Emancipation, England 1830-1914. Manchester University Press. p. 252. ISBN 9781526130662.