New Woman "Aurora Leigh" (1856), which explored a woman's plight between conventional marriage and the radical possibility that a woman could become an independent artist. In drama, the late nineteenth century saw such "New Woman" plays as Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" (1879) and "Hedda Gabler" (1890), Henry Arthur Jones's play "The Case of Rebellious Susan" (1894) and George Bernard Shaw's controversial "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893) and "Candida" (1898). According to a joke by Max Beerbohm (1872–1956), "The New Woman sprang fully armed from Ibsen's brain" (an allusion to the birth of Athena). Bram Stoker's Dracula makes prominent mention of the New
Hedda Gabler father. She then burns the manuscript and tells George she has destroyed it to secure their future. When the news comes that Eilert has indeed killed himself, George and Thea are determined to try to reconstruct his book from Eilert's notes, which Thea has kept. Hedda is shocked to discover from Judge Brack that Eilert's death, in a brothel, was messy and probably accidental; this "ridiculous and vile" death contrasts with the "beautiful and free" one that Hedda had imagined for him. Worse, Brack knows the origins of the pistol. He tells Hedda that if he reveals what he knows,