The Odd Women
Book description
`there are half a million more women than men in this unhappy country of ours . . . So many odd women - no making a pair with them.'
The idea of the superfluity of unmarried women was one the `New Woman' novels of the 1890s sought to challenge. But…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Odd Women as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
One of the reasons I like this book is because the author is a man writing about a woman’s inner thoughts and, unusually, doing a very good job.
The time and place: London, the 1890s. Single women are known as “the odd women,” the leftovers. Dr. Rhoda Nunn starts a school to train these women in secretarial skills (back then, most secretaries were men) so that they won’t be dependent on relatives or forced into unhappy marriages. Rhoda herself is proudly unmarried and independent – until she meets an absolutely wonderful man. Will she give up her advocacy for “odd…
From Kay's list on women leaving home to find success in the big city.
Published in 1893, The Odd Women focuses on women’s rights in the late Victorian period.
The odd in the title doesn’t mean strange but left out – not part of a pair. There were more women than men in late Victorian Britain, meaning that many women didn’t marry – which was a big deal in a society that saw marriage and childbearing as the end goal in life for women.
At the heart of The Odd Women are Rhoda Nunn and Mary Barfoot, both passionately dedicated to the cause of women’s rights; they run a typewriting school, offering women new…
From Katie's list on surprisingly feminist Victorian.
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