Our presentation of Florence Anne Claxton’s comic novel, The Adventures of a Woman in Search of Her Rights, concludes.

In last Monday’s installment, our heroine takes her seat in Parliament, presents before it Bills, and is promptly tossed out. Rejecting suit by a widower (who has six children), she next pursues a career as an artist, followed by becoming a medical doctor.

We pick up our story as yet another suitor appears…

The marriage to Brigham Young and the “it was all a dream” ending, is a bit disappointing, I must admit. One can only speculate about how much the ending reflected the author’s opinions, versus compromises perhaps necessary for publication.

But still, in a time when most cartoons made fun of Woman’s Rights (it became the plural Women’s Rights in the next century), Adventures of a Woman stands out not only as an overall pro-Rights, but also the only long-form sequential comic story addressing the subject, in addition to being one of the few 19th century sequential comic books by a woman.

The Adventures of a Woman in Search of Her Rights, is cited in a number feminist literature and art history texts, but as far as I’ve been able to determine, this is the first complete re-presentation of the work (versus talking about it, and occasionally showing just a panel or a page).

In addition to her cartooning and illustrations, which appeared in such publications as the Illustrated London News and the earlier issues of Judy magazine, Claxton is known for her paintings satirizing the Pre-Raphaelites. For an example, click on the below link to the Victoria & Albert Museum’s image of Claxton’s The Choice of Paris: An Idyll.

Doug Wheeler

ElectionCartoons “Women’s History Month”