Lady Connie: A Novel (Dover Literature: Romance) - Softcover

Ward, Mary Augusta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486855686 ISBN 13: 9780486855684

Publisher: Dover Publications Inc, 2026

Synopsis

Lady Constance Bledlow is rich, beautiful, and positively dazzling. She is also naïve, privileged, and nearly isolated in the world. Recently orphaned, Lady Connie moves to Oxford to live with her aunt and uncle and tries to adjust to her new environment.

This multifaceted coming-of-age romance story, set in the early twentieth century, unfolds amid the backdrop of Edwardian England and is rife with class distinctions and gender dynamics. Torn between the traditions of the aristocracy and the progressive ideals of independence and personal identity, Lady Connie challenges societal norms while navigating encounters with new and familiar faces. Confronting a rejected suitor from her past leads her on a journey of self-discovery to define what she genuinely wants in life – and, more specifically, whom she wants.

About this title

About the Author

The daughter of Thomas Arnold, Ward took an active interest in social work for London's poor and in women's education. She embodied her views in her novel Robert Elsmere (1888), the sales of which enabled her to establish a charitable 'settlement' for the working classes in London, which pioneered childcare for working women.

She married Thomas Humphry Ward of Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1872. She founded the Lectures for Women committee in 1879 and helped establish Somerville College, Oxford, but was opposed to women's suffrage. In 1908, she led the Women's Anti-Suffrage Association, which argued that women were the country's 'moral force', with channels of expression outside the political sphere.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dover Publications Inc
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0486855686
• ISBN 13: 9780486855684
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336