The Odd Women

by George Gissing, Elaine Showalter (Introduction)

Virginia and Alice Madden are 'odd women', growing old alone in Victorian England with no prospect of finding love. Forced into poverty by the sudden death of their father, they lead lives of quiet desperation in a genteel boarding house in London. Meanwhile, their younger sister Monica, struggles to endure a loveless marriage she agreed to as her only escape from spinsterhood. But when the Maddens meet an old friend, Rhoda Nunn, they are soon made aware of the depth of their oppression. Astonishingly ahead of its time, The Odd Women is a pioneering work of early feminism. Gissing's depiction of the daring feminist Rhoda Nunn, it is an unflinching portrayal of one woman's struggle to reconcile her own desires with her deepest principles.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Victorian, 19th Century, Feminism, Historical Fiction, British Literature

388 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1893

About the author

People best know British writer George Robert Gissing for his novels, such as New Grub Street (1891), about poverty and hardship.

This English novelist who published twenty-three novels between 1880 and 1903. From his early naturalistic works, he developed into one of the most accomplished realists of the late-Victorian era.

Born to lower-middle-class parents, Gissing went to win a scholarship to Owens College, the present-day University of Manchester. A brilliant student, he excelled at university, winning many coveted prizes, including the Shakespeare prize in 1875. Between 1891 and 1897 (his so-called middle period) he produced his best works, which include New Grub Street, Born in Exile , The Odd Women , In the Year of Jubilee , and The Whirlpool . The middle years of the decade saw his reputation reach new heights: some critics count him alongside George Meredith and Thomas Hardy, the best novelists of his day. He also enjoyed new friendships with fellow writers such as Henry James, and H.G. Wells, and came into contact with many other up-and-coming writers such as Joseph Conrad and Stephen Crane.

Reviews

[Emily May · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to do away with that common confusion of the words womanly and womanish, and I see very clearly that this can only be effected by an armed movement, an invasion by women of the spheres which men have always forbidden us to enter.

What a great book, and extremely progressive, even radical, for the 1890s! I'm surprised this isn't a better-known classic. I guess feminist novels by men tend to fly under the radar?

The Odd Women does not, as I first thought, refer to strange or eccentric women, but to those who are unpartnered-- single, independent (by choice or by circumstance) --and forced to make their own way in the world. Gissing is highly sympathetic to these women, and he uses different characters to portray several very different experiences; from the horror stories of women sinking into poverty and ill health, to the empowering tales of women fighting for their right to pursue a life outside of the expected domestic roles.

The story begins with the Madden sisters becoming orphaned. Middle-class, pampered, uneducated, and expected always to live under the care of their father and his estate, they are left helpless by his death. What can they do? They have no training for a job and no man to support them.

For Alice and Virginia, older (in their thirties, so basically ancient) and plain, a life of poverty looms. For the younger and pretty Monica, there is a chance to lure a husband. Alongside this, there is the story of militant "New Woman" Rhoda Nunn, who is working to provide unmarried women with the means and agency to support themselves. Rhoda’s mission is “To scorn the old idea that a woman’s life is wasted if she does not marry.”

Gissing has so much to say here, but the book is delightfully free from didacticism. The characters and relationships are complex, and some things I had worried might happen to weaken the story thankfully did not. Through the characters, Gissing highlights how men and society have acted to keep women ignorant, then resent and look down upon them for their ignorance.

Men have kept women at a barbarous stage of development, and then complain that they are barbarous. In the same way society does its best to create a criminal class, and then rages against the criminals.

He points out the hypocrisy of men who view women with disdain for being exactly what they have limited her to.

But it is not just about single women, but also about marriage and how it might not always be an ideal institution for women. He not only evokes sympathy for the women who are single, unable or unwilling to find a husband, but for those who are forced into marriage to avoid a life of poverty. Such women were often forced to give up their personhood when they became a wife.

Never had it occurred to Widdowson that a wife remains an individual, with rights and obligations independent of her wifely condition.

And we are forced to wonder whether love can ever really exist when one party is imprisoned by necessity.

Widdowson even speculates on divorce (which was legal but highly scandalous at the novel’s publication): "But— perhaps, some day, marriage would be dissoluble at the will of either party to it. Perhaps the man who sought to hold a woman when she no longer loved him would be regarded with contempt and condemnation."

I think Gissing achieved a brilliant balance between narrative drama and thoughtful commentary.

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly my favourite Gissing so far. A brilliant, engaging novel with fascinating and feminist themes, one of the most interesting Victorian books I've read.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent feminist novel written in the midst of the Victorian age, in 1893. The title refers to unmarried women who were considered "odd" in those times. What I like most about this novel is the humor and wit with which Gissing presents his characters and themes which in another writer's hands could be depressing.

We have reformers who want to change the role of women by discouraging marriage and encouraging independence. These reformers offer job training and education. We have women who attempt reform and succeed and some who fail. Failure means falling in love and/or marrying in order to stop working and to be cared for financially. These stories and characters are all well described. Most of the women feel tested and under great strain not to fail or to hide their failure and weakness when they succumb to love and/or marriage.

Throughout the novel some of the women, true to Victorian form are often sick, weak, fainting and dying from emotional turmoil, anxiety and grief. Then we have the weather which is a character in itself: London fog, rain and cold through which our characters must constantly navigate and which affects each character differently.

Gissing also gives us 2 very interesting men supposedly representing opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of a man or husband's expectations of a woman/wife in Victorian times. These men are also fine character studies. One believes he literally owns his wife and her thoughts but his real problem is that he is insanely jealous and afraid his wife will leave him. Then we have a man who wants his women to be independent, but in truth, he wants this independent woman to stand up to him and his attempts at domination: this is his test of whether she is worthy of marriage.

Does any of this sound familiar? Some things have changed since this book was written but I was smiling throughout at how much men and women's desires have stayed the same.

A very entertaining, interesting, insightful and atmospheric novel.

[Ines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book!!I have read it with an exasperating slowness, but I was able to enjoy it as I haven't been to do for a long time with the books of these last months. They are those women who, by fate or economic condition, are unable to reach marriage, thus remaining forced to enter the working world, often accepting humble jobs on the verge of slavery. The life of these London women of the late nineteenth century is revealed with a drama without discounts, these female creatures whose fate is giving only social denial and impossibility of emotional fulfillment. Everything revolves around the daily survival of these young girls, whose life and meaning become merely the goal of economic accommodation. The Madden sisters (Monica, Virginia and Alice) will find themselves living this female emancipation; their friend Rhoda and cousin Everald, the only ones who dare to raise their heads and fight for a proud individualism, self-love and social commitment. The finale unfortunately leaves a sense of fake fulfillment, but of full hope for future generations.



Capolavoro!!!!L'ho letto con una lentezza esasperante, ma sono riuscita a gustarmelo come non mi capitava da molto con i libri di questi ultimi mesi.chi sono le donne di troppo? Sono quelle donne che per destino o condizione economica non riescono ad arrivare al matrimonio, rimanendo quindi costrette ad affacciarsi nel mondo lavorativo accettando spesso impieghi umili al limite della schiavitù. La vita di queste donne londinesi della fine dell' ottocento viene svelata con una drammaticità senza sconti, queste creature femminili il cui destino sta dando unicamente negazioni sociali e impossibilità di appagamento emotivo. Tutto ruota attorno alla sopravvivenza quotidiana di queste fanciulle, la cui vita e significato diventano unicamente il traguardo di una sistemazione economica. Le sorelle Madden ( Monica, Virginia e Alice) si ritroveranno a vivere questa emancipazione femminile; l' amica Rhoda e il cugino Everald, gli unici che osano con coraggio alzare la testa e lottare per un fiero individualismo, amore di se ed impegno sociale. Il finale lascia purtroppo un senso di finto appagamento, ma di piena speranza per le generazioni future.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starring Rhoda Nunn, Victorian radfem.

Rhoda on the difficulty of young women getting decent jobs:

I know it perfectly well. And I wish it were harder. I wish girls fell down and died of hunger in the streets, instead of creeping to their garrets and hospitals. I should like to see their dead bodies collected together in some open place, for the crowd to stare at.

Rhoda on contemporary literature:

If every novelist could be strangled and thrown into the sea, we should have some chance of reforming women. … Love – love – love; a sickening sameness of vulgarity – what is more vulgar than the ideal of novelists?

Rhoda on marriage :

I would have girls taught that marriage is a thing to be avoided rather than hoped for. I would teach them that for the majority of women marriage means disgrace.

Her colleague Mary is on the same page too :

I tell you the simple truth when I say that more than half of these men regard their wives with active disgust. They will do anything to be relieved of the sight of them for as many hours as possible

(If I might explain this particular outburst, Mary is icily pointing out that the education of girls is so contemptible that they are infantilised and rendered mentally unfit to be a companion to the averagely educated man. )

So what is this extraordinary 1893 novel about ? The lives and disastrous loves of several women, two of whom are the above radical feminists who are trying to do something about the social problem of the Odd Women, meaning not odd like peculiar but odd like socks, unmatched, spare, surplus. Apparently there was a million more women than men in late Victorian England. Rhoda and Mary, being two odd women, run a kind of informal vocational college training women for clerical work and revolutionary subversion.

Interestingly enough, the v word is never spoken about. Votes are the last thing on these women’s minds. And there are other confusing cross-currents too – our feminists have zero interest in working class women – just as Gissing himself didn’t care a stuff about the workers. He was no democrat. Modern readers would reasonably assume that if you’re progressive in one area you would be in all areas, but just like the things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, it ain’t necessarily so.

So this is a novel of ideas. Gissing is a very serious fellow, he has only the plainest of prose and most of his dialogue is sparkle-free. He almost lapses into sociology at times, pedantically noting down every character’s annual income. But he boldly goes where almost no other Victorian novelists have gone before and it is a really thrilling ride. When he gives us a realistically nasty heartrending picture of a marriage destroyed by paranoid jealousy, his dreadful husband is no cardboard villain. He gives us two other expertly filleted romantic carcrashes and several pinpoint minor characters along the way. After all the Brontes, Austens and Dickens if you still think something’s missing, you’re right, it’s Gissing.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you do, if the only socially acceptable career is marriage - and no one marries you? In late nineteenth century England, millions of women were condemned to live a life of shabby-genteel desperation because there simply weren't enough men to have for husbands and virtually no actual employment was possible. This is the horribly narrow, lonely fate endured by one woman here - but it's far better than the fates of two of her siblings: alcoholism, and marriage to a well-meaning but unendurable ogre.

It's an alien world, with its strained proprieties and cock-eyed values - yet Gissing's treatment of it is so good (honest, fresh, angry, insightful way ahead of its time, and yet scarcely ever didactic) that many, many pages seem to describe scenes, and emotions, that are wholly modern. And on top of all this we get Rhoda Nunn, a magnificently complex, brave, fraught proto-feminist, trying almost single-handedly to reinvent her entire gender.

I expected this to be a book of some historical interest. What I got was a gripping read.

A brief note on the almost indescribably horrible Penguin edition I read (pictured here): what went wrong? I have not identified the typeface, but it looks like a form of semi-bold Palatino that someone has attacked with high-grit sandpaper before proceeding to use with twice the recommended amount of ink on poor-quality paper. Plus there is a persistent UNDER-printing near the bottom of every third or fourth page. Someone was asleep at the wheel on this one.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Odd Women is my first George Gissing and I was happily surprised by this very feminist novel. Named for the unpaired, "marginal" women in Victorian England, Gissing is full of surprises. The novel questions the role of women's work, relationships, marriage and position in society. Plus, it is a wonderfully told story! I was engaged and thinking and on my toes until the very last page.

[nastya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserves a good long review and if you followed my countless updates, you know how inspired I was while reading it.. My temptation sometimes was to highlight every other sentence.
But there will be no structure to this review.

Firstly, what is this novel? It's about the lives of a range of women in the late 19th century London, you can even say, the end of the era. Women are odd not in the meaning that they are strange, but because in those times there was something like a million more of women than men. And so since England didn't have polygamy and since every respectable woman's calling was to be a wife and a mother, what was left for those million of surplussed women? And also SOME women were starting questioning the society and rules of marriage, the treatment of female population as lesser immature humans. Here we meet three sisters (other three died, two from the illness and bad luck, and the most educated one got a nervous break down, was admitted and then drowned herself. Yeah, this is just a start of this novel) and one early feminist, not so much a suffragist, Rhoda Nunn, whose life's goal is to help those odd women to get a good profession. But only women of her class, she doesn't believe in sisterhood with those low class women.

Secondly, a lot of drama ensues, there are bad marriages and alcoholism, death and despair. Gissing is a surly fella. Fascinating (he once married a prostitute, but that marriage was a disaster) but very pessimistic.

What I really enjoyed is the modern feeling of the situations and how it was so adult unlike my experience with Dickens. I was so thankful that every character was adult and their behavior made sense, including fascinating complex women. You know how hard it is to find those in victorian novels? The dialogues were so rich and realistic, the prose I thought was plain at first, but no, it suits the story very well. Engrossing slice of life of late victorian era and I was surprised by how many thoughts and feelings these women had about marriage and living in the man's world through Gissing I heard and had with my girlfriends in 2000s. There're unfortunetly many places on this planet where women live oppressed lives still.

I only wish that Gissing was just a little tiny bit cheerier. But alas there's nothing cheery in this book.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a find! 

In 1893 - roughly 30 years prior to the publication of D.H. Lawrence's 'Women in Love' (1920) - the prolific George Gissing brought forth this scintillating work, which explores male-female relationships in the kind of straightforward manner that Lawrence couldn't quite manage. Although Lawrence's novel has its strengths, it's also sort of overwhelmed by the author's particular eccentricity and poetic vagueness. 

In its own way, 'TOW' is also laid out on a larger canvas. Unlike Lawrence's work, its focus isn't the narrow harangue that men and women are essentially mysteries to each other. Significantly, 'TOW' takes the larger swipe at societal dysfunction. It makes the claim that society itself dooms relationships due to women's inequality and the male-female imbalances in personal freedom and status as human beings. 

(Lawrence, of course, also unsatisfyingly dips his tentative toe into the indistinct waters of bisexuality - something the more clearly heterosexual Gissing is not concerned with.)

Our protagonist is 32-year-old Rhoda Nunn who, together with colleague Mary Barfoot, has made it her mission to mentor young (labeled "odd") women who (for one reason or another) have been overlooked in the marriage market. Rhoda sees being 'remaindered' as a blessing, since her view of marriage is a dim one. Dim and dismal. She basically feels that, much more often than not, marriage is simply a mistake that leads to misery. And, the way she explains it, she's not wrong:

"Our civilization, in this point, has always been absurdly defective. Men have kept women at a barbarous stage of development, and then complain that they are barbarous. In the same way, society does its best to create a criminal class, and then rages against the criminals."

To richly illustrate his main thesis, Gissing populates his novel with not only a number of characters who side with Rhoda but also a handful of peripheral, interpersonal relationships which serve to promote or (less often) disprove her theory. 

While simultaneously aware that her 'gospel' is somewhat impractical for the times she lives in, Rhoda is convinced that one has to start somewhere if meaningful change is to come about. And her goal is far more ambitious than that of Lysistrata:

"I am seriously convinced that before the female sex can be raised from its low level there will have to be a wide-spread revolt against sexual instinct. Christianity couldn't spread over the world without help of the ascetic ideal, and this great movement for woman's emancipation must also have its ascetics."

Rhoda is resolute:

Rhoda... probably desired a union which would permit her to remain an intellectual being; the kitchen, the cradle, and the work-basket had no power over her imagination. As likely as not, however, she was perfectly content with single life--even regarded it as essential to her purposes.

But, of course, she is also not only a woman but a human being; one who will soon recognize and parry with that pesky human folly: love:

"Please don't make me your confidante, Mr. Barfoot," Rhoda replied with well-assumed pleasantry. "I have no taste for that kind of thing."
"But I can't help doing so. It is you that I am in love with."
"I am very sorry to hear it. Happily, the sentiment will not long trouble you."

Mr. Barfoot - Everard - is cousin to Rhoda's colleague Mary. A rather fascinating male specimen, he becomes the catalyst for the larger portion of the novel's drama. 

And, as the novel progresses, the drama increases, largely as a result of such human frailties as misunderstandings and jealousy. But don't mistake Gissing's novel for soap opera. It's too well-written to be lumped in with that. For a work published about 130 years ago, the construct and tone are remarkably accessible. Gissing is a master at persuasive character studies (esp. women), and he writes dialogue like nobody's business; at times, adding a dash of sardonic wit.

I found the novel intensely satisfying. Near its conclusion, there were at least 3 or 4 occasions in which plot-turns worked against expectation.

This is the first Gissing novel I've read. I look forward to others.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

A riveting novel exploring the nascent rumblings of female emancipation, with a cast of strong and memorable characters serving up a long and thoughtful series of ruminations on the problems of Victorian marriage and divorce laws, and the basic humbuggering that befell women who liked to think things and not sew quilts for eight hours a day. The two main narrative threads concern an emancipated woman conflicted by the attentions of a man who is attracted to emancipated women (with dreams of dominating one), and a man who marries a seeming doormat who turns out to like thinking and refuses to bend to her master’s wishes. A plethora of mild-mannered cacophonies ensue in one of Gissing’s finest and less despairing productions.

[MihaElla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well! Well! Well! This amazing novel might be interpreted as a conference related to life or to the spectacle of existence that, quite enough, occupies one through a lifetime.

If we start with Socrates, know yourself , he teaches us to return to ourselves, to find the core of our difficulties in the battle of feelings. From him we learn that troubles do not come exclusively from material causes, and therefore the solutions do not necessarily have to be material. Using the 'Socratic method' we can reach ourselves, the traps we set for ourselves without having to 'cure' ourselves pharmaceutical, psychological, psychiatric. It is enough to understand that everything revolves around our thoughts, and then everything comes by itself :)

If we continue with Epictetus, we learn to control ourselves, to be stoic in the face of visceral attacks. And so, if we were to be left with something from Stoic thinking, then we would be left with the fact that some things cannot be controlled, being independent of our will. From where, obviously, arises the impossibility of realizing any fantasy. Like Socratic thinking, Stoicism asserts that we can control our opinions. Basically, they are the only ones that disrupt our clarity, even shattering it without mercy.

Philosophical training requires moderation and exercise. You cannot implement any teaching if you are not prepared to endure, even to go through all the preparatory stages of self-perfection. And it's not easy, it's difficult, but the goal must be higher than the pleasure of the moment. If we don't know how to control our anger, then we need to get in touch with Seneca's teachings ;)

At the opposite pole, Epicurus suggests that we should enjoy the moment. Carpe diem! Let us indulge in our pleasures and sail beyond any disputes, let us make every day a new life, let us understand, as the Stoics would have said, that not everything revolves around us, and if things are like that, then surely we have nothing to lose if we cheat destiny. From here we should have the drunkenness of feelings and the smile to successfully pass any trial.

Long story short I fear I was not expecting that peculiar closing of the tale. Positively unexpected though some threads were quite expected whilst the narrative was unfolding, and better than anything is the fact that I have truly enjoyed myself reading this book. In a way it is impossible not to be moved by it, and even get entangled in a sort of bondage. Gissing writes both cheerfully and heart-rending. One eye was experiencing sadness, bitter or deep distress whilst the other was smiling, with bits of laugh now and then, thanks to a bright humour scattered around. Either way, it is a good sign to be hungry for emotions and feel the heart beating cheerfully too. And this book affects deep emotions within one being. Needless to say it is always nice to see woman daring enough to think and act for herself. Especially in those odd circumstances as mentioned in the book.

“She is full of practical expedients. The most wonderful person! She is quite like a man in energy and resources. I never imagined that one of our sex could resolve and plan and act as she does!”

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel take on different approaches to marriage, along with issues of female education and emancipation. Very progressive for its day (1893), especially because the male author focuses on female characters, in a convincing, engaging, and non-patronising way, with plenty of twists and intrigue.

Doctor Madden is widowed, with several daughters. They’re a bookish household, but he’s not a fully qualified doctor, so they’re not affluent. He confides in his eldest:
“Women, old or young, should never have to think about money.”
He dies by the fifth page, before putting his affairs in order.

A few years on, and times are hard for the Maddens. They vowed early on not to spend their small amount of capital, but even getting an unpaid, live-in position as a governess is difficult without a school certificate, the cost of lamp oil means winter evenings are too dark to read, and the fear of illness is profound when you’re poor. Only 15 pages in, and one asks:
“Is such a life worthy of the name?”
But this is not a depressing book, although tragedies, deaths, and abuse certainly occur. It’s about women working together to improve themselves, forging friendships, and becoming empowered.

In London, the Maddens reconnect with a childhood friend, the fiercely independent Rhoda Nunn. She lodges with Miss Barfoot, and together they run a clerical/secretarial college, not to prevent women marrying “suitably” but:
“To see that those who can’t [marry] shall have the means of living with some satisfaction.”

They believe in redemption, though not from traditional Christian practice or belief.
“A mistake, however wretched, mustn’t condemn a woman for life.”

The lives and loves of various women connected with Rhoda and Miss Barfoot are explored over more than 300 pages, broken into short chapters. A fascinating variety of circumstances and outcomes that give real insight into lives of the period.


Image: ‘Reflection in the Thames’ by Atkinson Grimshaw That could be Monica! He died the year this novel was published, and the painting was was in 1880 (Source)

Class and money

The novel is steeped in the fact that class and money matter, but are not necessarily congruent - something I relate to, having been educated in a selective boarding school, raised with the associated attitudes (many of which I’ve since dropped) and tastes, but without ever having the money to live them. Monica was “raised half a lady and half a shop-girl”, epitomising the Maddens’ struggles.

Class and money profoundly affect, but don’t fully determine, their lives:
“They knew themselves superior to the women who had grudgingly paid them.”
Each escapes in a different way, with varying success.

Miss Barfoot’s school, though a charitable endeavour, is selectively so. It is only for women of the educated class. She is explicitly not interested in working class girls, who are likely to revert to “their animal nature”!

Marriage - and alternatives

“Some marry for a good reason, some for a bad, and mostly it all comes to the same end.”
The options explored are not limited to marrying a social equal, being a spinster, or becoming a fallen woman. There are women sharing accommodation through necessity (it’s easy to assume a lesbian relationship, but it’s not always so), marrying for money, illicit relationships, “free unions” (open cohabitation), and “perfect freedom on both sides” possibly including non-monogamy.

At times, the earnest discussion teeters to excess, but the characters and their lives kept me engaged.

Quotes

• “Perfume smoothed the air.”... Now widowed, “she was able to indulge this taste for modern exuberance in domestic adornment.”

• “Though despising X for his plebeian tastes, she shrewdly retained the good will of a husband who seemed a candidate for length of years.”

• “She lived at the utmost pace compatible with technical virtue.”

• “Of course I am not quite happy. What woman is? I mean, what woman above the level of a petted cat?”

• “Everything he said presupposed his own supremacy.” [He’s also a stalker who turns to coercive control.]

• “Fear of losing his wife’s love restrained him from practical despotism.” [She doesn’t love him.]

• “A womanly occupation means, practically, an occupation that a man disdains.”

See also

Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, which I reviewed HERE.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

”So many odd women—no making a pair with them.”

Before I read this book, I thought of only one meaning of the word “odd”: strange, unusual. The sentence above from Chapter IV brought to focus another meaning. If there are “half a million more women than men” in England and their main purpose is to be married off, what is there to do with the left-overs?—the so-called woman question.

Rhoda Dunn is determined to train the many women who are fit for it. She wishes the workforce of females, those barely surviving on low wages in menial jobs, would, instead of “creeping to their garrets and hospitals” to die were dying “of hunger in the streets” for the “crowd to stare at,” though she admits the crowd “might only congratulate each other that a few of the superfluous females had been struck off.”

With this novel’s irony and humor, I thought of George Meredith’s The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859), a novel satirizing the ridiculousness of social mores. In the tense relationship between Rhoda and Everard, as well as with a young woman’s marriage to an older man, I was reminded of Constance Fenimore Woolson’s East Angels (1886).

I’d read Gissing’s New Grub Street (1891) years ago and, though it is relentlessly depressing a la Émile Zola, I loved it. This Gissing of two years later is not depressing, though sad things do happen. The novel references the occupations deemed fit for a woman because they are the ones men hold in contempt. It mentions the use of religion by “most men” as an “instrument for directing the female conscience.” Much of it feels relevant still.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an astonishing book: a subversive, feminist take on marriage and women’s roles in society, written by a man in the 1890s. I suspect that’s not a coincidence, that a woman couldn’t have gotten away with this book and its criticism of Victorian marriage and Victorian men. And to round out the praise, it is also an excellent story, with fascinating and believable characters, that had me turning the pages as quickly as any contemporary novel.

Late 19th century England had a marriage market in crisis – the country had many more women than men (presumably due to colonization), yet there was no provision for the “odd women out”; in society’s eyes a woman’s life was worthless if she failed to marry. The problem is considered so severe that a male character in this book urges marriage on his friend as a charitable duty, to save some poor woman from spinsterhood. This is the backdrop to a story primarily about two women, though not the two you’ll see in the blurb or the first chapters. Alice and Virginia Madden are our prototypical Victorian spinsters, who after their father’s death are forced to make their living as a governess and a companion respectively: work they find unfulfilling and precarious. They mope quietly in the background of this novel, too plain to hope for husbands and too timid to break out of their roles, serving as the example its other women react against.

Anyway, on to our real protagonists. First, Rhoda Nunn, now one of my favorite literary heroines. Like her friends Alice and Virginia, Rhoda is not pretty and was forced to make her living at a young age; unlike them, she is independent, bold and uncompromising, and went about learning the skills she needed to find work with dignity. When the story opens she and her friend Mary Barfoot are running a typing school for young women, enabling them to make a decent living. Rhoda and Mary are active feminists and represent different sides of the movement, Rhoda the militant who dislikes the idea of marriage, Mary the gentler side whose goal is helping others. Of course Rhoda’s world is shaken when she starts to fall for Mary’s cousin, the charming Everard.

Our other heroine is Monica, the youngest and prettiest of the Madden sisters. Monica is briefly a student at the typing school, and picks up some feminist ideas without quite realizing it, but at heart she is a conventional woman afraid of becoming an “old maid.” So when a wealthy older man begins to stalk her, she marries him in spite of her misgivings, and her story is one of trying to negotiate the boundaries of a Victorian marriage, in which her husband expects to rule her in all things.

As you can see from the above, while this book has the drawing-room conversations and reticence about sex you’d expect from a Victorian novel, otherwise it’s unlike anything I’ve read from the 19th century. It engages frankly with issues of class and gender, and I loved reading about the early feminist movement. First-wave feminism is known for being exclusive, and we see the characters thinking and arguing about that: should they include poor women? What about “fallen” women? (Women of color do not come up, and the book is much less progressive when it comes to race. The n-word pops up twice – jarringly, in contexts not meant to be offensive.) Exclusivity wins out in the end, but it’s important to see that it isn’t without debate; at any rate I can hardly blame these women for it, given where they started and how much we owe to women like them.

But it is also simply an excellent story, well-written and very readable, with an engaging plot that grabbed my attention and didn’t let go. This is not a story you’ve read before; there’s genuine suspense regarding the outcome. The characters are realistic, three-dimensional people, all of them with strengths and flaws, and it’s a great strength of Gissing’s writing that different readers can come to wildly different conclusions about them. You don’t have to be especially interested in feminism to enjoy this book, though if you are it’s a real treat.

I do have a couple of reservations, for which it gets 4.5 stars rather than 5. One, the will-they-or-won’t-they between Rhoda and Everard in the middle of the book is drawn out a bit too long. And two, there’s a bit too much unnecessary female jealousy, some of it bizarrely retconned into an otherwise beautiful scene. However, I forgive all of this in light of the end; this book can’t be intelligently discussed without talking about the ending, so my interpretation is included below. But I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to know before reading the book, so be warned.

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

So, this is basically the most feminist ending ever. First off, Rhoda rejects Everard in favor of devoting herself to her work. Name me one other novel, please, whose heroine chooses herself over an acceptable man! Some critics have seen this as pride getting the better of her, and causing her to lose out on romantic love and motherhood. But every choice in life means giving up the alternative, and given Rhoda’s immediate regrets when she initially agreed to the marriage, this seems to be the choice that will bring her the most happiness. And I doubt this couple would have worked out anyway; sparring might make exciting courtship but the endless power struggle would have lost its luster. And the way Everard thinks about marriage, in terms of conquest and domination, is in no way attractive; when he says he wants a strong woman, he means the submission of a worthy opponent. He doesn't care about Rhoda herself nearly as much as the excitement of the chase. I admit to getting a little caught up in the romance myself, but on reflection the misunderstanding really was fortunate for them both.

And Monica. A lot of reviewers have interpreted her death as a punishment for considering adultery, and yes, the "unfaithful" woman's death is a common trope in Victorian novels. However, this is not a moralistic novel, and Monica never actually cheats, so it’s hard to see why Gissing would have felt the need to punish her. And look at the simple cause-and-effect: Monica dies giving birth to the child she conceived with her husband, not in any way related to her potential affair. Had she rejected Widdowson, she would have lived. That’s right: marriage killed Monica, not immorality. I told you this book was subversive.

[Paul Weiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It was the first time in her life that she had spoken with a woman daring enough to think and act for herself.”

The informative forward in the edition which I read, defined “odd women” as:

“displaced spinsters … the largely middle-class victims of a cruel and restrictive traditional ethic which allowed women no social or economic alternative to marriage. Convinced that the essence of ladylike gentility was never ‘to earn’, and enslaved by the myth that their femininity depended upon qualities of helplessness and passivity, these untrained women workers were forced to compete for the genteel but marginal wages of a governess or companion when family funds expired.”

Written in an era in which societal norms and the constraints of religion and propriety restricted polite female roles to wives and mothers within marriage - itself constrained by a multitude of unwritten rules - THE ODD WOMEN is a courageous, forward-looking story of a handful of ambitious women who dared to break that mold. Modern parlance would accuse Gissing of indulging radical “woke” feminism. Despite the more traditional, indeed misogynistic tones of his earlier works, in THE ODD WOMEN Gissing explored a multitude of themes from a more enlightened perspective – spinsterhood and satisfaction with a lifetime decision to celibacy; career women and career satisfaction in non-traditional professional occupations; marriage for love as opposed to being strictly a decision of economic security; free love relationships and non-traditional common law marriages; divorce and marital separation; the development of a business school for women; a critique of the traditional, intensely male-focused inheritance laws; and more.

Despite being a Victorian novel (written in 1893), THE ODD WOMEN is reasonably modern in its writing. Its narrative tone (unlike what readers of the genre have come to expect in the more flowery, loquacious and verbose prose of Gissing’s 19th century predecessors such as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Jane Austen or the Brönte sisters) is surprisingly straightforward and readable with relative ease.

That said, Gissing, from time to time, lapses into a retro-Gothic style that is as thick as any produced by the aforementioned literary lights. Consider this description of a sleepless episode as Monica, one of THE ODD WOMEN’s heroines, suffers through a deeply troubled self-examination of her thoughts and motives:

“Monica was the first to [yield to exhaustion]; she slept for about an hour, then the pains of a horrid dream disturbed her, and again she took up the burden of thought. Such waking after brief, broken sleep, when mind and body are beset by weariness, yet cannot rest, when night with its awful hush and its mysterious movements makes a strange, dread habitation for the spirit – such waking is a grim trial of human fortitude. The blood flows sluggishly, yet subject to sudden tremors that chill the veins and for an instant choke the heart. Purpose is idle, the will impure; over the past hangs a shadow of remorse, and life that must yet be lived shows lurid, a steep pathway to the hopeless grave. Of this cup Monica drank deeply.”

“The old faiths, never abandoned, though modified by the breath of intellectual freedom that had just touched her, reasserted all their power. She saw herself as a wicked woman, in the eye of truth not less wicked than her husband declared her. A sinner stubborn in impenitence, defending herself by a paltry ambiguity that had all the evil of a direct lie. Her soul trembled in its nakedness.”

“What redemption could there be for her? What path of spiritual health was discoverable?”

Society’s tenacious, unyielding grip on women, their minds, and their behaviour was awesome in its power. THE ODD WOMEN is a classic worthy of the term and needs a wider readership if we are to move forward in the recognition of women’s rights as undeniably human rights. Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a Victorian novel, written by a realist--George Gissing. It is a forerunner to books of feminism. It depicts the situation of women of slender means. For most women there were few other alternatives than marriage. With no dowry or a small one, then you better be pretty!

We are told that in Victorian England there were one million more women than men, meaning that after you pair men and women up into couples, one million women are left over. What is to be done with these “odd” women? Are they to be viewed as a resource or as a drain to society? These are the women referred to in the title. It is these women the author writes about, as well as one woman who has good looks and is lucky enough to marry. The question posed is if she is in fact lucky. Marriage is not drawn in pretty pink colors.

I appreciate the realism with which the author draws the characters’ lives. The outlook is for the most part grim. If you are looking for a happy book you’d better look elsewhere. The characters have varying dispositions. By the book’s end, you know each one well. There is one woman and one man--these two are SO stubborn! They are attracted to each other, but could a relationship between them ever work? There is a man who is obsessively jealous; he is also a total control freak! There are those who strictly follow their principles and those a bit more flexible. We see how the characters’ lives are drawn together and what happens to each..

The writing is intelligible, but old fashioned and terribly wordy. What is said over several sentences, sometimes whole paragraphs, could be said much more succinctly, using just a few words. I find this tiresome. To figure out what is said you must wade through a million words. Nor is the writing pretty. I cannot give the book more than three stars because I find the writing longwinded. And the book is too long.

Jane Sappy narrates the audiobook. Her narration I have given two stars. One hears every word said, but her reading is flat with rarely any fluctuation in tone. Droning on and on, it is easy to fall asleep. Then one must rewind, which is a nuisance.

********************

*Eve's Ransom 4 stars
*The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft 3 stars
*The Odd Women 3 stars
*New Grub Street 2 stars

[Everyman · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his day, in the late Victorian age, Gissing was one of the most popular novelists. But he is not well known today, his contemporaries Trollope, Hardy, and James having aged much better than Gissing has. Indeed, neither the Oxford Anthology of English Literature - Victorian Prose and Poetry nor the Norton Anthology of English Literature has an entry for his writing, and the Oxford Anthology doesn't even mention him in its "Suggestions for Further Reading." The Teaching Company course on "The English Novel" has no discussion of him.

His contemporary obscurity is a shame, because while he may not be a first rank writer, some of his novels and most of his short stories are certainly worth reading. The Odd Women is one of his better known novels, though in my view not as strong as either New Grub Street or The Nether World.

The odd women of the title, I should note up front, are not called odd because they are unusual, but are odd because at the time England had considerably more women of marital age than men, so there were many women who were "odd man out," or more accurately "odd woman out." The novel follows about a decade in the lives of five women, three of them sisters, for whom marriage is unlikely and, in several cases, unwanted (or so at least the characters argue; the reader is entitled to believe or disbelieve them). The novel is mildly didactic, with extended conversations discussing a variety of views toward marriage and feminine liberation in the late Victorian age. These views are more enjoyably offered than they would be in a more academic document, and offer some interesting thoughts on the role of marriage and women in the transition period of the later industrial age.

The weakness of the novel, in my view, is that several of the main characters are rather flat, with their characters not well developed. They aren't quite stereotypical, but they seem to represent "types" Gissing uses to put forth his views rather than actual people.

The novel's strength is the extended conversations, which are thought-provoking and often amusing. Indeed, Gissing has a subtle and wry sense of humor which he slips in almost casually rather than flaunting.

Without spoiling the ending, or endings since there are several intertwined stories, I can say that this is not the traditional English comedic novel with everybody coming out happily in the end. It isn't quite Hardy, but it is closer to him than to Austen.

This is not a great novel, but it is a good novel, easy to read and quite sufficiently enjoyable when a reader wants a bit of a break from Bleak House, and War and Peace, and other "most serious" novels.

[Adam Dalva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thrilled to be introducing this book with my friend Merve Emre! And excited to start a conversation about it here.

[Jo (The Book Geek) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an intriguing Victorian novel about the lives of three women, who are considered 'Odd women' because they are part of the million women that are left once all of the men have found partners and then married. Apparently, in Victorian England, there were one million more women, than there were men, and marriage was apparently the best option, even if it is a miserable one, rather than be left on one's own. Personally, I think the latter sounds more desirable.

The question that arises in this novel is to do the marriage of one of the sisters, who folk refer to as lucky, simply because she is has found a man to marry, but honestly, does marriage really make this woman lucky?

The entirety of this book from the very outset is fairly depressing, but the way in which Gissing builds his characters is most effective. I felt like I knew a couple of them personally by the end. Did I actually like any of the characters? Not particularly no, but they were all different and interesting to say the least.

The writing style is readable, but, I found there were parts where something that could have been stated in a paragraph, was written over a few pages, and I found this to be a little tedious. I couldn't say there is any real beauty to be found within these pages either, but still, I found the characters interesting enough to plough through to the end.

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprising novel for Victorian England. It looks at women living as independent, thinking and working, full human beings and what that means for marriage, and womens lives in general. I enjoyed it a lot but felt it was overly long (I found myself getting bored by some of the more tedious attitudes of particularly Mr Widdowson).

[Issicratea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I’m beginning to like Gissing. I read New Grub Street a few months ago and my jury remained slightly out, but The Odd Women won me over.

Thematically, this novel is very interesting indeed. The “odd women” of the title are those surplus to requirements in late-Victorian Britian: women of the genteel, but unmoneyed classes who do not find a husband, and find themselves socially invisible, financially straitened, and deprived of any means to fight their way out of their corner. Fear of this fate, as Gissing illustrates, can drive women into the equal and opposite fate of a desperation marriage, which condemns both them and their husbands to a form of living hell.

Two of the main characters in this novel are on a conscious mission to address this social problem by providing business training—essentially, typing and bookkeeping—to prospective “odd women,” in order to give them a means of maintaining their independence. These two, the reticent Mary Barfoot and the more exuberant Rhoda Nunn, were the freshest characters in the novel for me. They take rather a while to surface, but, once they did, my interest was piqued.

One reason why The Odd Women worked for me a little better than New Grub Street is that its gloom and misery is slightly less unremitting. In addition to the dreary, precarious lives and feeble twitches of rebellion in which Gissing seems to specialize, we have some more colorful elements here. I was especially struck by the sparky, unpredictable, sexually charged relationship that develops between Rhoda and Everard Barfoot, Mary’s faintly bounderish cousin. This stole the show for me and made me revise my opinion of Gissing’s subtlety and imaginative range.

I still have a few reservations about Gissing. He’s not the most elegant of writers; there’s a workmanlike quality to his prose, and a degree of clumpiness to his plotting at points. But he has certainly got something—perhaps as simple as an ability to home in unfailingly on what is most new and live and raw in his society. This gives his novels a disconcertingly modern air at times, rather like the sensation of seeing color photographs from the early 1900s, which jolt you into seeing the past in a different way.

[Fionnuala]

I read this because Gerald Murnane admired George Gissing and I was curious about what he saw in Gissing's novels. I'm not sure what exactly he saw but I liked this book enough to start another book by Gissing.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction

--The Odd Women

Selected Bibliography

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

My I-just-finished take is that I loved this novel. I found the characters compelling and interesting and the story swept me along. If I wasn’t reading so much Victorian lit alongside this, I’m sure I would have read it much more quickly. I loved that this shows the rise of the New Woman in the late Victorian times (it was published in 1893). It felt very different from an earlier Victorian novel, and I loved that I could feel the winds of 20th century change blowing through its pages. I’m sure I’ll have more to write another time.

Good news! The Backlisted podcast has an episode on this book!

Next Day Review: I realized how often I thought of Dorothy Sayers as I read this novel. She was born in 1893, which is the year this novel was published. I can see so many things Sayers was wrestling with in her own life that played out in the pages of this book. When a woman doesn't marry (sometimes by choice, sometimes for reasons beyond her control), what can she do to live a meaningful life outside of the societal roles of wife and mother? How does an ambitious and intellectual woman find a place in a male-dominated academy and work field? Is it possible to have a marriage of equals? Is marriage inherently unequal for a woman? These are all questions Sayers addresses especially in Harriet Vane's character and in Gaudy Night, but I'm pretty sure, from reading her letters and her work, some of these questions dogged Sayers her whole life.

These are some of the questions that play out in The Odd Women as well. The overarching narrative is rooted in the story of Alice, Virginia, and Monica Madden. When the story opens, they are teenagers and a five-year-old, respectively, and living a comfortable, happy life with their doctor father and three other sisters. They have plenty of friends in their neighborhood, one of whom is young teenager named Rhoda Nunn who lives with her invalid mother. At the end of the first chapter, disaster strikes and the father dies in a carriage accident leaving the six girls with just 800 pounds between them. The older girls go out to work and a place is found for Monica.

Fast forward 16 years. Alice and Virginia are now in London after their current jobs have come to an end. They live together in a small bedroom in a boarding house on the interest from the investment of the 800 pounds. Three sisters have died and young adult Monica is working long hours for a dressmaker. Alice has been a governess to small children since their father died and Virginia has been a companion to various old women. The catalyst of change in the story is a letter from their old friend Rhoda Nunn, who is living in London.

Virginia goes to see Rhoda and learns that Rhoda is a teacher at a small secretarial training school for young women that is owned and run by a woman called Mary Barfoot with whom Rhoda lives. The result of the meeting is that Monica becomes a pupil at the school, though she has secret plans of her own that will save her from a life like her sisters' of genteel poverty and shabby spinsterhood.

From here, the story moves away from Virginia and Alice and centers on Rhoda and Monica. I was surprised by that turn in the character focus of the story, but the more I read about Rhoda and Monica, the more I loved their stories. Monica finds herself in a marriage with an older man who is intensely jealous of her time and affection just as she feels that marriage has finally given her freedom to move about in the world. The crumbling marriage is described so vividly and so well. I wanted to reach into the pages of the novel and shake Edmund Widdowson until his teeth rattled in his head! The way Monica's marriage and life intertwines with Rhoda's becomes increasingly suspenseful.

We get a good amount of Mary Barfoot in the sections about Rhoda, and I loved her character. Mary has a very comfortable income and is not married, both of which enable her to train girls to type and take shorthand and become secretaries in the working world. It's almost funny to read about from a 21st century perspective but I don't want to underestimate how freeing this was for women who were sometimes completely dependent on male relations for sustenance of any kind. What happens when a woman is left vulnerable by the death of a male relation like the Madden sisters are? Both Mary and Rhoda believe that there have to be more options for women than those traditionally open to them: marriage (possibly loveless), a hospital nurse, a governess, a companion. What if a woman isn't suited for or doesn't want these roles?

Though Rhoda and Mary are both spinsters, being 32-ish and 40-ish respectively, they have differences as unmarried women. Mary is more soft-hearted and there is a sense in the novel that she would have married if the opportunity had opened to her. But she is by no means unhappy with being unmarried and is strongly committed to her work. Rhoda is quite different; she is radical and there are times in the early part of the novel where she comes close to hating both men and marriage as being the ultimate oppressors of women.

So it's quite interesting what happens when Mary's cousin Everard Barfoot comes into the picture and Rhoda has to ask herself if she is as committed to her principles as she thought she was... I love Rhoda's last name. I mean 'nun' has to be intentional on Gissing's part, right? I love that her last name alludes to an ancient and valued role that a woman could have outside of marriage and motherhood but that was no less a calling.

I loved Rhoda as a character. Even though I like Mary better (she is calmer, wiser, older, more compassionate, less radical), I think Rhoda goes through some intense things that test her belief in her life's purpose in a fascinating way. Gissing does make Everard a very attractive character, and I honestly wanted Rhoda to marry him. I do love a book with a happy marital ending, so I was genuinely surprised that their relationship comes to nothing and Everard marries another young woman with nothing of Rhoda's strength of character that he so admired. When I re-read this, I want to pay attention to how Everard is actually too good to be true in his support of Rhoda's radical views of women and of marriage (i.e. that she strongly considers living with Everard outside of marriage).

As an unmarried woman myself, I love Rhoda's commitment to her own freedom. Marriage in her day had some very different societal expectations than marriage does in our day, so it's by no means a one-to-one comparison. Like Rhoda, I've never particularly wanted to be a wife or mother either, so I found her independence refreshing. I am tempermentally a lover of solitude. As a highly sensitve person, my inner life is precious to me and easily disturbed by chaos (even the happy chaos of family life). I am not a natural challenger of social norms like Rhoda, but I love that she finds a calling in pushing the bounds for women and showing the world, as Dorothy Sayers wrote, that women are human.

Women have gained so much ground in the 120+ years since this novel was published, but so many of its questions still feel relevant. There is simply no one answer for what it means to be a woman, and I love that Gissing has so many female characters who are all so unique and real.

Despite the questions this books asks that kept bringing Sayers to mind for me, it's also a great story that kept me turning the pages. This is definitely a standout read from Victober 2022.

[Mighty Aphrodite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary Barfoot e Rhoda Nunn vivono insieme a Londra, accomunate da una missione che le coinvolge in prima persona: aiutare le donne che non si sono potute sposare a studiare per trovare un lavoro appagante, capace di dare un senso alle loro vite a prescindere dal legame con un uomo e dalla cura della casa.

Rhoda Nunn definisce queste donne – e sé stessa – come donne di troppo, coloro che, agli occhi della società, sono inutili, prive di importanza, spessore, capacità. Sono le donne che – alla lotteria del matrimonio – non hanno pescato il biglietto vincente, le donne difettose, accusate dagli uomini di voler rinnegare la propria femminilità, di voler rubare loro il lavoro, di abbassare i salari.

Per Rhoda questa missione è tutto: lei non ha mai sperimentato l’amore, non crede nel matrimonio, spinge le giovani che la circondano e che studiano con lei a non lasciarsi andare ai sogni dorati del sentimento e della passione, a non cedere a quella che – per lei – è solo la strada più semplice da percorrere: sposarsi per Rhoda vuol dire rinunciare alla propria indipendenza, alla propria personalità, alle proprie idee. Non c’è davvero libertà nel matrimonio, perché la società – e con essa gli uomini – non è pronta a vedere le donne come esseri umani, persone con cui confrontarsi alla pari, capaci di avere idee, sentimenti, aspirazioni.

Dalla sua infanzia e adolescenza passate nel piccolo paese di Clevedon, riemergono le sorelle Madden, anch’esse a Londra. Dopo la morte del padre a causa di un incidente a cavallo, le giovani sorelle Madden sono state costrette a lasciare le rassicuranti mura di casa per confrontarsi con il mondo e la necessità di lavorare. Senza nessuna esperienza della vita di tutti i giorni, con le menti piene solo di poesia e ideali, l’impatto con la realtà ha lasciato queste giovani senza fiato. Alice e Virginia hanno cercato di lavorare come insegnanti e dame di compagnia per signore dell’alta società e ora, rimaste senza lavoro, attendono un nuovo impiego che possa permettere loro di continuare a sopravvivere, a condurre una vita di stenti e sacrifici. Monica, invece, stanca della monotonia della campagna, si è gettata con curiosità nella vita di città e fa la commessa in un piccolo negozio.

Continua a leggere qui: https://parlaredilibri.wordpress.com/...

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've rather flippantly described The Odd Women as Little Women but set in London and with all the cosiness excised and replaced by stark realism. Imagine if Meg's marriage was so unhappy that she fled from her husband, Jo became an alcoholic, and not only did Beth die but Amy as well. Gissing writes about the lives of lower middle class unmarried women in the 1870s, as they struggle to afford food and rent yet cling to ideas about proper occupations. While they will consider working in a shop, despite women of lower class also doing so, employment in a factory is utterly unacceptable. The usual jobs are teacher, governess, or paid companion. As at least one character points out, teaching is an excellent profession for those who both want to teach and are trained to do so. For many of the women pushed into with no training and no enthusiasm, it's bad both for them and their charges. The narrative follows a group of sisters named Madden who struggle to make ends meet after the unexpected death of their father, a doctor. The two older sisters encounter a pair of independent women, who train others of their sex and class in typing so that they can earn a more stable living. Hanging over all of them is the question of marriage, which offers financial security but at what cost?

I hadn't read anything by Gissing before and was impressed with his deft and subtle treatment of the social issues, contradictions, and dilemmas facing women in the 1870s. His characters are sympathetic and vivid creations, yet their experiences also illuminate the contested and changing position of single women in Victorian society. Each has their own perspective, shaped by their class, personality, and experiences. Discussions between them, and with men of their acquaintance, illuminate the internal and external constraints upon them. It is unusual and striking that, with a single brief exception, Gissing depicts unsuccessful marriages and single women.

I found Rhoda and Monica the most involving characters and the narrative gives careful attention to them both. Monica is the youngest Madden sister, the prettiest and perhaps most enterprising. Her decision to marry a man she met in a park as he is well-off is shown to be understandable, given the financial security this provides for her sisters and herself. Yet her husband turns out to be appallingly controlling, a man who cannot reconcile his beliefs about men ruling women with the actual reality of his wife as an intelligent and independent person. I found the confusion around who Monica had been considering running off with a little melodramatic, but overall her narrative was powerful. Particularly so when contrasted with Rhoda's.

Rhoda Nunn is a fascinating character: a confident proto-feminist who cannot find sympathy for 'fallen' or working class women yet supports and inspires other women of her class with her independence and pragmatic advice. Her relationship with Everard Barfoot is a prolonged and tense power struggle. He initially tries to capture her interest simply for the challenge, then falls for her but cannot give up his desire to humble her. While she also falls for him and at one point does agree to marriage, she realises he is not trustworthy and equally wishes to humble him. Naturally I was on Rhoda's side and felt much relieved when she finally decided not to marry Everard. I do not think their relationship would have been stable or lasting. While they clearly enjoyed verbal sparring and were attracted to each other, there was a distinct absence of mutual respect.

Gissing's writing style is clear and compelling. I was amused that the endnotes, which I found somewhat excessive, flag when his narrative voice makes a misogynist assumption. I think the 21st century reader can spot these for themself and contrast them with his actual depiction of female characters. The Odd Women was written during a time when economic and social change were straining established norms around class and gender. I found it a quietly radical, historically interesting, and genuinely involving novel.

[MichelleCH · Rating 5 out of 5]

A definite winner in my eyes. There are some books that just make you think and this is one of them. Taking the idea of 'odd women' and turning it into a novel is just brillant.

Odd women are those women who are left after all other eligible men and women have been paired in marriage. These women are not outcasts per se but definitely live a much different life than those who have a husband.

Some of the women in this novel embrace the distinction while others are so afraid of becoming one that they make poor choices which resonate over their lifetime. One example is that of Monica Madden, alone in the world, she must support herself as a shop-girl. This profession is harsh and with a limitless supply of desparate workers; there is little to advance any worker's condition for the better. As soon as one worker is depleted there are many others ready to fill a position.

When an opportunity to marry a man of distinction and means presents itself, Monica is so afraid of losing this singular opportunity that she makes a decision in haste. This decision later becomes a central point in the story and leads to numerous bad decisions and complications.

At the same time, there are other women in the novel who embrace their freedom and control; these are odd women who have found a purpose. The pioneers who create the tide of liberation for women.

Rhoda Nunn, a peer and friend to Monica, is a perfect example of the type of woman that laid a path for future women to benefit from. Although she presents as a judgemental character at times, Rhoda is able to stand strong in her beliefs and desires and not become, as so many others do, beholden to any one man.

I loved this novel and there is much too much to describe. I can see a book club embracing this for a wonderful discussion. So many themes to explore: love, class, economic oppression, capitalism, feminism, desire, morals, just to name a few.

Thank you again Sera for introducing me to this gem!

[El · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sort of fell out of the world for about a month, didn't I? I am back and trying to get caught up on some reviews. It's been a busy time and also summer and summer makes me feel like the saddest pile of shit you've ever met, so bear with me. It happens every year, though this year may be the worst so far.

The Odd Women is a delightful story about the Madden sisters and their friendship with Rhoda, an intelligent woman, rare for their environment and society. Rhoda, of course, opens up their eyes and their minds and that is, of course, terrifying for many people because that's not the way women are! These women are odd, what with their fancy-shmancy views on eating meat and deciding not to get married and living out of wedlock and shit. Odd, odd women. Sheesh.

This was my first experience with George Gissing's writing, but it won't be the last. I'm glad I started with this book, though, because it embodies many of my own views and reading about these women going through things that were uncommon for the 19th century (or at least frowned upon) made me infinitely happy. Parts of the story (or the writing) reminded me of Fortunata and Jacinta: Two Stories of Married Women which I also loved. It's possible Gissing had read that before writing The Odd Women since Galdos published his book about ten years prior. Just a thought.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks late 19th-century literature was stuffy, and never focused on the rights of women, or portrayed women as just lapdogs. These characters are not lapdogs - they have feelings and beliefs and while some may make poor choices, their decisions for those choices are well-discussed in a complete and well-rounded manner.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writing this review will be a struggle; not because I didn't like the book, but because why I liked it is not so easy to explain without saying more than I usually do about the heart of the matter.

So many odd women--no making a pair with them. The pessimists call them useless, lost, futile lives. I, naturally--being one of them myself--take another view. I look upon them as a great reserve. When one woman vanishes in matrimony, the reserve offers a substitute for the world's work.

Ok, so that explains the title. This speech is given by a woman who is part of the emancipation movement of the 1890s. I must have lived under a rock, but I honestly didn't know, and was more than mildly surprised, that this very strong feminist novel was published at that time. I can only imagine the reception it must have received. Not only did Gissing address the right of women to work in other than teaching or domestic service, but it addressed the desire for a wife to be intellectual partner with her husbands.

Don't let me mislead you. Yes, this was all I've said in the preceding paragraph, but there was a rather good story as well, with interesting and well-developed characters. The prose is excellent, perhaps much better than other Victorian literature. Gissing is on both the 1001 Books list and on Bloom's Western Canon list, but for his New Grub Street, which I hope to find room for before too much time passes.

[H.A. Leuschel · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful surprise this book has been for me.

Published in 1893, it is one of the best books I have ever read about how the pressure of social conventions as well as the lack of financial backing can both ruin women’s and men’s lives. Of course, women’s lives are even more affected by them as they received very little education and were brought up to marry, run a household and have children. What made this book so special though is the added underlying theme of feminist movement led by two strong women who use their skills and financial means to provide training to women who due to their social standing have very little chance of an advantageous marriage. Their aim is to offer independence to these ‘odd women’ (as they were called then) through work that does not ruin their health prematurely and pays them better than the usual teaching, nursing or shop assistant jobs.

It’s an eye-opening, gripping and realistic book and I have to confess that I was surprised that it was written by a man. He paints an honest picture of a society whose stiff social code causes great human/female distress with very little room to manoeuvre and create a decent when money is lacking. Highly recommended!