George Egerton emerged as a pivotal "New Woman" writer and feminist author of the fin de siècle. Her stylistic innovations and radical subject matter cemented her place among the era's most influential literary voices. Egerton's experimental approach to form and content foreshadowed the modernist techniques of writers like James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence. Her work, which also influenced Thomas Hardy, is notably credited with the first mention of Friedrich Nietzsche in English literature.
Set in the ostensible location of Kristiania (Oslo), this is a compelling trip into the mind of a young writer driven by starvation to fluctuating extremes of euphoria and despair. The narrator is forever on the verge of madness and suicide.