Grant Allen's Miss Cayley
Grant Allen serialized "Miss Cayley's Adventures" in the Strand magazine in 1898. The Strand is best known as the magazine where the Sherlock Holmes stories first appeared. Capitalizing on the popularity of mysteries and the rise of feminists known as "New Women," Allen created an independent female detective who decides to solve the problem of supporting herself by traveling round the world in search of adventures. She turns out to be extremely resourceful as she solves mysteries, exposes fraud and hypocrisy, and upends expectations about proper womanhood.
Anyone who's familiar with Allen's The Woman Who Did knows that his feminist credentials are questionable at best. This story is still worth reading, though, and Allen has created a likable, opinionated character in Miss Cayley.
The first installment, "The Adventure of the Cantankerous Old Woman," is available here.
From "The Adventure of the Cantankerous Old Woman"
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