George Egerton, James Joyce and the Irish Künstlerroman

George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne, 1859–1945), from Co. Laois, was the New Woman author most closely associated with the Decadent movement. As such, she was also the New Woman writer most profoundly affected by the downfall of Oscar Wilde. After the Wilde trials of 1895, Egerton's connection to Decadence and New Womanhood would make her work anathema to much of the British public. This essay will argue that ongoing tendencies to situate her texts solely within the New Woman categorisation and an English cultural location have had the detrimental effect of obscuring their importance to a specifically Irish literary tradition. By examining Egerton's 1898 novel The Wheel of God, focusing on its status as an Irish Künstlerroman written from a position of exile, and drawing comparisons between it and the works of James Joyce, this essay will seek to redress this imbalance.