Will I love The Odd Women?

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… show more.

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… show more.