The Odd Women

by George Gissing · 1893

In late-Victorian London, sisters Alice and Virginia Madden scrape by as impoverished spinsters while their younger sister Monica marries the dull, jealous Widdowson out of sheer economic desperation. Meanwhile the fiercely independent Rhoda Nunn, who runs a school training women for clerical work, wrestles with her attraction to the charming but unreliable Everard Barfoot, testing whether a modern woman can have both principle and love.

Books mentioned in The Odd Women (1)

• The Christian Year by John Keble: “Alice turned over 'The Christian Year,' and endeavoured to console herself out of it, whilst her sister prepared the meal.”

Books that mention The Odd Women (1)

• On Women by Susan Sontag: “...found its voice in the 1890s in, say, Shaw's essays and George Gissing's novel The Odd Women.”