The Anchorless Woman and the Feminist Tradition

Wharton’s “The House of Mirth” and Willa Cather’s “A Lost Lady”

Upper-class NYC and a dying train station in the West are locations for women finding a “voice.” Photos by Lanis Rossi.

Mary Hamilton, an unwed lady-in-waiting to Mary, Queen of Scots, is a tragic Scottish heroine who is sentenced to die after murdering her illegitimate child — a product of a brief affair with a courtier.