I loved this book! It asks the question, what if Jane Eyre had never met Rochester, or inherited money? Women in the 19th century had very few options, and were often stuck in dead-end jobs on the verge of poverty. This is an excellent work of Victorian social realism, centered on a group of female characters on different rungs of the London social-class ladder. Recommended!

the title of this book should've been "too bad, so sad", bc damn did everyone struggle in this book. had to read for my last history assignment and boy am i glad that is over. next time i wanna feel depressed about being a woman, i'll pick up this handy dandy novel. thanks george! #ripmonica

It's particularly interesting, paired with The Story of an African Farm, for their shared interest in long political speeches about feminism and their shared low-level despair than anything can be resolved -- but unexpectedly, I think I like this one a little better in its execution, for its wonderful treatment of Rhoda.

i am gissing'd out

In 1890s London, sisters Virginia, Alice, and Monica are our guides to the world of “Odd Women,” those “unpaired” and unasseted young women who have to make their way without resources of education, male protection, or legal rights. As the sister with the most promise, Monica’s journey is at the center of the story; she takes a job as a shop-girl, working six 13-hour days a week on her feet, 51 weeks a year, and begins to conceive of marriage as her only likely escape from the fate of her older sisters, who are slowly succumbing to penury, ill health, loneliness, and joylessness, despite their best efforts. Monica quickly gives in to the attentions of the lonely but distinguished Mr. Widdowson and abandons her single life for the prison that marriage becomes with him. Gissing’s book explores marriage in all its dimensions, but he’s particularly interested in how Victorian women’s economic and legal dependency distorts the institution. He presents other alternatives, particularly in the characters of Rhoda Nunn and Mary Barfoot, two “New Women” whose charitable school trains young women for genteel work as secretaries (then mainly a male profession) where they might improve their minds and earn some kind of freedom. Nunn and Barfoot are the vanguard of a kind of “sexual [AKA gender] anarchy,” in which women can begin to explore their human potential more fully. But it takes an extraordinary woman to break free of social convention; ‘The Odd Women’ demonstrates how messy—and how slow—change is.

5 stars-

This is a masterpiece. One of the best books I’ve read this year, and one of the best Victorian novels that I’ve ever read.

Extremely complicated characterization, tight writing, gripping plot, and melancholy atmosphere. Explicitly feminist- one of the most directly feminist novels I’ve ever read, and this was written in 1893 by a man. Completely massacres the stereotypical Victorian ending.

A tragic but relevant story about the lives of a few “odd women,” unmarried women in Victorian society as a result of there being a massive (to the tune of around a million) disparity of female population vs male population. How did these women, who didn’t have a lot of money or great education, make lives for themselves? Do they marry anyone they can, even if they don’t love them? Do they learn skills like typewriting so they can obtain office work? Do they take it upon themselves to help other women be successful? Or do they drink all of their problems away?

Absolute destruction of the Victorian marriage ideal, women’s traditional roles in society, and romance. Gissing is sympathetic, sensitive, and very in tune with the lives of his characters, and writes an extremely realistic novel which was heart-wrenching, shocking, and thought-provoking.

What a tragedy that this author is almost forgotten! Out of 23 novels, MAYBE 2-3 of them are read. And even those couple of novels are pretty obscure to the general reading public.

Classics can be intimidating, but the writing here is super accessible. If any of this would appeal to you in a modern novel, definitely pick this one up. It completely swept me off my feet.

I wish I'd read this book when I was still teaching. It would have made a great addition to my Victorian Lit. or Nineteenth-Century novel classes. Gissing's book explores the position of women in late nineteenth-century England, when social and legal strictures prevented them from attaining education and career opportunities enabling them to be self-sufficient. Custom and law restricted women to the domestic sphere whenever possible, leaving women unable to marry or trapped in bad marriages to suffer. The book follows the lives of several connected women through spinsterhood, oppressive marriage, or unmarried and working to win women the right to financial, intellectual, and emotional independence - as well as the men connected to them. Gissing also looks at how men become limited by the social system, financially and socially powerful, but often frustrated when married to women who are helpless or have become selfish and sneaky to beat the system. With well developed characters, Gissing explores the thoughts and feelings of men and women trapped by this system and creates emotional and suspenseful situations naturally derived from their conditions that will keep you in suspense as well as give you something to think about.