As with Jane Eyre, the phenomenon of a woman telling of the vicissitudes and feelings of her past has a long history, with Moll Flanders (by Daniel Defoe, 1722) being the most popular early example.
However, the plot scheme of a relatively helpless woman pitting herself against a hard world became a repeated formula of writers in England and in France (for instance, Zola's Nana, 1880). Two later examples of female novelists who dealt with the problems of.....
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