Trying to establish what the figure praying is repentant for is difficult still due to how Beardsley has presented her. In contrast to many of his other works and the works of other artists in The Yellow Book, nobody in this particular drawing is nude. With the Victorian ideals in place and the outrage from reviews of this volume, it is peculiar that a woman is repentant for something that is not directly related to sex. 

      Beardsley’s censoring of the female name in his piece’s title is something that is not unique to his artwork. In his personal correspondence to and about his female companion(s), their names are similarily censored with asterisks. One must ask then, if this is because their status as women is shameful, or if Beardsley in his capacity as a powerful man seeks to protect their feminine mystique and innocence. The idea of Beardsley seeking to protect the womens’ identity is reinforced by the foreward to a compilation of his letters by Reverand John Gray. Though inevitably biased by his relationship with the artist, he notes that Beardsley was “utterly devoid of any malevolence towards his fellow-creatures” and that “he had in his nature a great possibility of affection, if personal timidity or sensitiveness baulked its expression” (Beardsley, V).

    However, harsh reviews of the volume of The Yellow Book in which The Repentance of Mrs.**** appears condemn the indecency and blatant nudity contained within the periodical (A Yellow Indecency). Interpreting this review could be taken in two directions, with one suggesting Beardsley’s periodicals were simply ahead of their times, and the other that he was exploiting the female form for publicity. 

Of course, the decadence movement fell step in step with the continued surge of the women’s rights movement Dowie found herself a part of. Both similarly eschewed social conventions and sought to expand the horizons of society’s limitations (Hughes, 851). Both the decadence movement that The Yellow Book ascribed to and the female literary movements were lumped together in the eye of the public, with both demanding that the frameworks in place which privileged nature over culture be dismantled. This is especially true in Dowie’s case, as her work is a clear reflection of the desire to break from assumed roles in nature such as motherhood (Hughes 851)

Linda Hughes explains quite succinctly in her work that Beardsley and The Yellow Book editorial team would often use poetry written by women following the arrest of Oscar Wilde (850). This allowed them to publish works that were more decadent without as great a fear of public backlash after the fallout from the famed author’s arrest. Part of the reason this was possible was due to the public impression of women at large.

Seen as susceptible to influence and more passionate and emotional than their male counterparts, female poets were not held to the same exacting levels of morality that men were-they simply were unable to control themselves (Hughes 850). Using this to his advantage, Beardsley was able to continue the magazine’s scandalous motifs and decadence without exposing himself or other male artists to extreme criticism from the public and other literary folk. This was important, for The Yellow Book prided itself on being avant-garde, and did not want to lose their edge simply by association by the took-it-too-far Wilde.

Between The Repentance of Mrs. **** and My Note-Book in the Weald, one might presume to know that gender norms in the 1890s were relaxed. However, it is clear that both these artists simply pushed boundaries, for better or for worth. Their involvement in the decadence movement and The Yellow Book helped to further their rebellion against polite Victorian sensibilities at the time. While we may never know what Mrs. **** was repentant for, or even her real name, it is fair to say that she was not Menie Muriel Dowie. She was repentant for nothing, and her body of work shows that no woman should have to be repentant for any part of their womanhood, especially for being independent from a man.



"A Yellow Indecency." Rev. of he Yellow Book 4. The Critic 16 Feb. 1895: 131. The Yellow Nineties Online. Ed. Dennis Denisoff and Lorraine     Janzen Kooistra. Ryerson University, 2011. Web. November 18 2015. http://www.1890s.ca/HTML.aspx?    s=review_v4_critic_feb_1895.html

Beardsley, Aubrey, 1872-1898. Last Letters of Aubrey Beardsley. United States:, 1904. Web.