White Fell (Swedish regions 1876–1896)

Werewolf scholar Chantal Bourgault du Coudray suggests that the proliferation of demonic female werewolves in nineteenth-century fiction was a response to the fear and alarm generated by the emerging womens’ rights movement, the suffragettes, in England at the time. These femme fatale werewolves were usually young, beautiful, foreign and dressed in white fur, with a tell-tale glint in their eye and intent upon the destruction of husbands and other unsuspecting men. Significantly, the suffragette werewolf committed her atrocities as a woman not as a wolf, only returning to lupine (wolf) form after death.

One such femme fatale is White Fell from Clemence Housman's 1896 English novella, The Werewolf. In the illustration by the author’s brother Laurence Housman, White Fell’s gender is not obvious, reinforcing the subtle allusions to androgyny in his sister’s text.