Between Literature and Pamphlet: Women Writers on Sexual Transactions in the Scandinavian Modern Breakthrough

In the nonfictional works I Nutidens ansvar og forpligtelser i , I Om Albertine i , and I Penningen och Kärleken i , Fibiger, Skram, and Stéenhoff clearly express their own perspectives on sexual transactions. Writing about the Modern Breakthrough (MB) means opening a vantage point on a remarkably dynamic phase in the history of Scandinavian literature during the last three decades of the nineteenth century until the beginning of the First World War.[1] During this period, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were closely tight to each other in the literary marketplace, in which the Danish literary critic Georg Brandes (1842-1927) played a central role. Indeed, all three works illustrate how poor these girls often were: Skram talks about the poor seamstress Albertine; Fibiger focuses on domestic maids; and Stéenhoff focuses on working-class girls, with the only difference that she also includes petite bourgeoisie and middle-class married women and mothers in her work. Fibiger talks about appropriate school education for future domestic maids; Skram speaks about "examples in which the so-called public ladies turned into good, loyal, capable and self-sacrificing wives"; and Stéenhoff refers to an ideal society where love will be detached from money. Next to the emphasis on the wrongness and cruelty of prostitution in general terms, Fibiger, Skram, and Stéenhoff picture a dimension of transformation, hope, and change.