The Odd Women (Annotated)

This edition includes the following analysis by the editor in the form of a conclusion: "The Odd Women," a pioneering novel of women's emancipation

Originally published in 1893, “The Odd Women” is a Victorian novel by English novelist George Gissing and it is considered one of his most popular novels. Its themes are the role of women in society, marriage, morals and the early feminist movement. Critics praise Gissing for sensitively tackling gender issues and Victorian sexuality but, for a Victorian novel, it was a very provocative work.

“The Odd Women” follows two women who must forge independent lives for themselves when they fail to find husbands.

The novel tells the story of the Madden sisters, Alicia, Virginia and Monica. Their father’s death leaves them in poverty and forces them to seek ways to support themselves – this at a time when career options for genteel women were close to nonexistent. The two elder sisters find work as governesses or lady’s companions and just barely manage to make ends meet, living lives of respectable poverty and quiet starvation. In addition to this, the fact that they have to work has of course social consequences, one of them being that it bars them from the career followed by most Victorian women: marriage. Monica, the youngest of the Misses Madden, works as a shopgirl, and her youth and beauty make Alicia and Virginia hope that she’ll escape becoming one of the odd women the title refers to – “odd” both because as single women they were regarded as strange, and because they remained unpaired...