Beatrice the Sixteenth

Beatrice the Sixteenth: Being the Personal Narrative of Mary Hatherley, M.B., Explorer and Geographer is a 1909 feminist utopian novel by Irene Clyde, the name and identity used by English lawyer, writer, and activist Thomas Baty. The novel follows Mary Hatherley, a geographical explorer who, after an accident in the desert, arrives in Armeria—a lost world society governed by a monarchy and lacking binary gender distinctions. There, she becomes immersed in a culture that lives communally, forms lifelong same-gender partnerships, eschews gendered roles, follows a vegetarian diet, and values intellectual and artistic development. As Mary adapts to Armerian society, she forms close relationships and gradually comes to question her own social assumptions.

Combining speculative fiction, romance, and social commentary, the novel is structured as a first-person travel narrative and explores themes including gender, companionship, and alternative social systems. It is noted for its initial avoidance of gendered pronouns and its critique of heterosexual marriage. The novel draws on Clyde's broader philosophical commitments, which rejected the gender binary and traditional sex roles, and shares thematic links with Clyde's editorial work on the journal Urania.

While some scholars interpret the novel as a radical feminist and postgender utopia, others have noted its idealism, inclusion of slavery, reinforcement of class distinctions, and reliance on binary oppositions such as Armeria versus Uras and free people versus slaves. Although it departs from traditional gender roles, the narrative has also been described as preserving conventional structures through the institution of monogamous partnership, or "conjux". Modern scholars have variously characterised Clyde as non-binary, genderfluid, transgender, or a trans woman, interpretations that have shaped contemporary analysis of the work. Initially overlooked, the novel has since attracted scholarly attention for its early and distinctive treatment of gender, sexuality, and social organisation, and is now considered an important work within the history of speculative fiction, transgender, and LGBTQ literature.