The Odd Women

In a Victorian England where women outnumber men and marriage is treated as a woman’s only proper aim, Gissing follows several who fall outside that plan. The Madden sisters slide into genteel poverty after their father dies, and the youngest, Monica, escapes into a marriage to an older man that quickly becomes a cage. Set against them are Rhoda Nunn and Mary Barfoot, who train young women in office work so they can support themselves, and whose convictions are tested when love comes calling. Published in 1893, the novel takes the era’s woman question seriously without offering easy answers, giving equal weight to the freedom independence brings and the loneliness it can cost. Free to download as a PDF or EPUB.