The Odd Women

'there are half a million more women than men in this unhappy country of ours . . . So many odd women - no making a pair with them.' The idea of the superfluity of unmarried women was one the 'New Woman' novels of the 1890s sought to challenge. But in The Odd Women (1893) Gissing satirizes the prevailing literary image of the 'New Woman' and makes the point that unmarried women were generally viewed less as noble and romantic figures than as 'odd' and marginal in relation to the ideal of w...