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 as her father's daughter than her husband's wife." Hedda, the daughter of an aristocratic and enigmatic general, has just returned to her villa in Kristiania (now Oslo) from her honeymoon. Her husband is George Tesman, a young, aspiring, and reliable (but not brilliant) academic who continued his research during their honeymoon. It becomes clear in the course of the play that she has never loved him but married him because she thinks her years of youthful abandon are over. It is also suggested that she may be pregnant. The reappearance of George's academic rival, Eilert Løvborg, throws their lives into