Politics, Fellowship, and Romance: Clementina Black and the Culture of Socialism in 1880s London

This chapter examines the lives and writings of three sisters, each of whom responded to Morris's works with enthusiasm: Grace, Constance (Garnett), and Clementina Black. It explores the rhetoric of ‘fellowship’ that permeated the mixed-sex discussion groups and early socialist organizations frequented by the Blacks and all the writers whose works are subsequently studied in the book. The discussion examines the Black sisters' idiosyncratic political beliefs and their various attempts to advance the socialist cause through labour organization. The chapter also explores the extent to which the Blacks' work and writing for the socialist movement forced them to address the ‘Woman Question’ as a concern in its own right by the late 1880s. The chapter closes with an analysis of Clementina Black's historical romances published in the late 1890s.