The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 1
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 1
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Background
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination.
Cultural Context: The 1880s Typist Boom and the “Superfluous Woman”
Emma’s friend Mary Bairrage offers readers an example of a new class of working women that emerged in the 1880s in England. The commercial success of typewriters like the Remington No. 2, introduced in 1878, created a surge in clerical jobs deemed suitable for women. For middle-class women, typing offered a respectable alternative to roles like governess or companion, providing a degree of financial and social independence previously unattainable. By 1880, women were being actively recruited for these positions, particularly in government branches like the Post Office, which saw them as a source of capable, inexpensive labor.
Mary’s employment as “one of the first typists in London” at the Edison Telephone Company places her at the forefront of this technological and social shift (42). This new economic freedom challenged the Victorian ideal of separate spheres, where a woman’s place was in the home. Unmarried, financially independent women were often viewed with suspicion and anxiety, sometimes labeled as part of a “superfluous woman” problem, a term for the demographic surplus of single women who were seen as a social burden. This cultural pushback is mirrored in the strict rules of Mary’s boarding house, which only allows her to go out with an “approved chaperone,” showing the tension between her modern profession and the traditional social constraints she must still navigate. Mary’s career is an act of participating in a broader movement toward female autonomy in a society still grappling with women’s changing roles.
Legal Context: Victorian Inheritance and Women’s Property Rights
Emma’s financial ruin at the hands of her guardian, her cousin Archibald, is a direct result of 19th-century English law regarding inheritance and the rights of minors. Until reaching the age of majority at 21, a minor who inherited property, like Emma, was placed under the control of a legally appointed guardian. This guardian had total power over the ward’s estate and finances, a system that was intended to protect the inheritance but instead offered opportunities for abuse. A father had the sole right to appoint a guardian in his will; if he failed to do so, the Court of Chancery would appoint one, often the closest relative who couldn’t inherit from the child in order to avoid conflicts of interest.
Archibald’s position as fiscal guardian gives him legal authority to manage Lapis Lazuli House and its income, which he exploits to fund his wardrobe and gamble, intentionally ruining Emma’s inheritance out of spite. Mr. Penury confirms that this gross negligence was deliberate, a malicious act enabled by the legal power vested in him as guardian. Emma is legally powerless until she turns 21, a fact that she notes will allow her to “dethrone him on every legal ground.” (35) While the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882 significantly expanded the rights of married women to own property separately from their husbands, Emma, as an unmarried minor, remains subject to the authority of her guardian. Her struggle offers an example of how the legal framework of the era could leave even propertied young women disenfranchised and vulnerable.
Series Context: The Serialized Novel and The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion
Beth Brower’s The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion is an ongoing series published in slim installments rather than as a single book, a structure that shapes how readers experience Emma’s story. The first volume, released in 2019, covers only two months of Emma’s life (March and April 1883) and ends with her vow to “keep this house” (107). This deliberate open-endedness reflects the series format, which Brower has continued across multiple subsequent volumes. Brower writes that she conceived of the series “as if it were a television series. There are about four seasons of Emma, give or take a volume or three, each ‘season’ comprising a year” (“About Beth Brower and Frequently Asked Questions.” Beth Brower). As of this publication in 2026, the series contains eight volumes, and each volume contains Emma’s journal entries for two months. Brower anticipates 21-24 volumes in total, designed to cover about four years of Emma’s life.
The diary structure reinforces this serial approach. Because Emma records events as dated journal entries, the narrative unfolds in real time, mirroring the episodic rhythm of Victorian serialized fiction like Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers (1836) and William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1847); novels such as these appeared in installments in magazines that left readers anticipating the next chapter. Brower extends this connection to the present through her Substack newsletter, “Beth Brower Scribbles Away,” where she publishes additional short fiction about the residents of St. Crispian’s. This positions the series within a living, expanding fictional world rather than a closed narrative.
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