15 h 46 minAudiobook6 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 15 h 46 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if marriage offers escape from poverty, but leaves too little room for freedom?
In London in the early 1890s, the Madden sisters face life with almost no money after a comfortable childhood. Monica works in a draper's shop and longs for ease. Edmund Widdowson can offer security, but his wish to protect a wife comes with a desire to keep her close.
Elsewhere, Rhoda Nunn and Mary Barfoot train young women for office work and argue for a life beyond marriage. When Mary's cousin Everard takes an interest in Rhoda, conviction meets attraction. In The Odd Women, George Gissing brings questions of income, independence and love into lives where every choice has a cost.
What you’ll discover
- Freedom with a cost Follow women weighing the need for security against the wish to direct their own lives.
- Rhoda's firm convictions Meet an independent teacher whose views on marriage face the pressure of personal attraction.
- Work as a way forward Enter a school where office training offers young women another path through life.
- Money behind every choice See how an income, or its absence, shapes courtship, hope and the limits of choice.
- No easy answers Hear competing views given room in a calm, exact story of loneliness and pride.
Who will love it
For readers who love Victorian realism, stories about money and marriage, and novels in which ideas matter as much as plot.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A doctor's daughters are left with little
- Monica trades one cage for another
- Rhoda Nunn lives by her own rules
- Alice and Virginia meet the new women
- Everard Barfoot tests Rhoda's convictions
- Widdowson wants a wife he can possess
- Marriage and freedom pull against each other
- The real subject is money, work and choice
- A cool narrator, a crowded city, a balanced debate
Who’s who
- Rhoda NunnA sharp, independent teacher who helps run a school for working women and holds that a woman may do well to stay unmarried.
- Mary BarfootAn older woman of private means, warm and generous, who funds and leads a school that trains young women for office work.
- Monica MaddenThe youngest Madden sister, a lively shop assistant who longs for ease and freedom and sees marriage as a way out.
- Alice MaddenMonica's older sister, gentle and anxious, who has lived for years on small means and wonders whether she can start again.
- Edmund WiddowsonA well-off man in middle age, careful and devoted in his own mind, who wants a wife he can protect and keep close.
- Everard BarfootMary's educated cousin, a man of means who admires clever women and is drawn to Rhoda, though his ideals can harden into stubbornness.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Die überzähligen Frauen
by George Gissing · 1893
In London, Rhoda Nunn trains women for independence while Monica Madden sees marriage as her way to freedom.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What happens to a woman when no man is left to keep her? The Odd Women, a novel by George Gissing published in 1893, drops this question into London in the late 1880s, when everyone argues about the Woman Question.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A doctor's daughters are left with little
Dr Madden is a kind father with six daughters and a comfortable home. He assumes there will always be time to provide for them, so he puts the question off. The girls grow up as young ladies, with no thought of earning a living.
Then the doctor dies and leaves very little money. Gissing makes this a quiet but brutal moment. Girls who expected a protected life find that no one is protecting them.
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What is The Odd Women about?
It follows the Madden sisters, left poor by their father's death, and two reformers, Rhoda Nunn and Mary Barfoot, who train women for office work. It looks at marriage, money and independence in 1890s London.
What does the title The Odd Women mean?
It refers to women left unmarried because there were thought to be more women than men. It also hints at women who are odd in the sense of unusual, choosing a life outside the usual pattern.
When was The Odd Women written and is it a true story?
George Gissing published it in 1893. The setting and issues are real. Women's work, marriage law and the so-called Woman Question were widely debated in Britain at the time.
The author
George Gissing
1857–1903 · English novelist
George Gissing was an English novelist born in Wakefield in 1857. He lived in London and later in France, where he died in 1903. He wrote New Grub Street, published in 1891, The Odd Women, published in 1893, and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, published in 1903.
More by George Gissing
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