"[Gissing] achieved one of the very few novels in English that can be compared with those of the French naturalists who were his contemporaries." -Walter Allen, The English Novel Five odd women-women without husbands-are the subject of this powerful novel, set in Victorian London, by a writer whose perceptions about people, particularly women, would be remarkable in any age and are extraordinary in the 1890s. The story concerns the choices that five different women have to make and what those choices imply about men's and women's status in society and relationship to each other. Alice and Virginia Madden, suddenly left adrift by the death of their improvident father, must take grinding and humiliating "genteel" work. Terrified of sharing their fate, their younger sister Monica accepts a proposal of marriage from a man who gives her financial security but makes her life wretched. Interwoven with their fortunes are Mary Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn, who are dedicating their lives to training young women in skills they can use to support themselves. Their broader aim is to help free both sexes from whatever distorts or depletes their humanity? including, if necessary, marriage. Into their lives comes Mary's forceful and engaging cousin, Everard Barfoot, and as he and Rhoda become locked in an increasingly significant and passionate struggle, Rhoda finds out through the refining fire what "love" sometimes means and what it means to be true to herself.
"When it comes to the complexities of everyday life in late-Victorian London, there is no better guide than Gissing and no better Gissing than The Odd Women. And now, in Arlene Young's carefully edited and annotated edition, we have the definitive guide to Gissing's novel. Students will also find the historical documents gathered in this volume an invaluable resource in the study of the "woman question" and the sociology of work in the 1890s."--Stephen Arata
Comments:
“When it comes to the complexities of everyday life in late-Victorian London, there is no better guide than Gissing and no better Gissing than The Odd Women. And now, in Arlene Young’s carefully edited and annotated edition, we have the definitive guide to Gissing’s novel. Students will also find the historical documents gathered in this volume an invaluable resource in the study of the “woman question” and the sociology of work in the 1890s.” — Stephen Arata, University of Virginia
“Broadview’s enterprise is especially welcome in the case of The Odd Women, Gissing’s second most commonly studied novel. [This edition] deserves to become the text of choice for teachers--especially given its modest price.” — The Gissing Journal
“When it comes to the complexities of everyday life in late-Victorian London, there is no better guide than Gissing and no better Gissing than The Odd Women. And now, in Arlene Young’s carefully edited and annotated edition, we have the definitive guide to Gissing’s novel. Students will also find the historical documents gathered in this volume an invaluable resource in the study of the “woman question” and the sociology of work in the 1890s.” — Stephen Arata, University of Virginia
“Broadview’s enterprise is especially welcome in the case of The Odd Women, Gissing’s second most commonly studied novel. [This edition] deserves to become the text of choice for teachers--especially given its modest price.” — The Gissing Journal
"When it comes to the complexities of everyday life in late-Victorian London, there is no better guide than Gissing and no better Gissing than The Odd Women. And now, in Arlene Young's carefully edited and annotated edition, we have the definitive guide to Gissing's novel. Students will also find the historical documents gathered in this volume an invaluable resource in the study of the "woman question" and the sociology of work in the 1890s." -- Stephen Arata, University of Virginia
"Broadview's enterprise is especially welcome in the case of The Odd Women, Gissing's second most commonly studied novel. [This edition] deserves to become the text of choice for teachers--especially given its modest price." -- The Gissing Journal
"When it comes to the complexities of everyday life in late-Victorian London, there is no better guide than Gissing and no better Gissing than The Odd Women. And now, in Arlene Young's carefully edited and annotated edition, we have the definitive guide to Gissing's novel. Students will also find the historical documents gathered in this volume an invaluable resource in the study of the "woman question" and the sociology of work in the 1890s." -- Stephen Arata, University of Virginia
"Broadview's enterprise is especially welcome in the case of The Odd Women, Gissing's second most commonly studied novel. [This edition] deserves to become the text of choice for teachers--especially given its modest price." -- The Gissing Journal
