Penguin Classics: Women Who Did: Stories By Men And Women

The "new woman", with her bloomers and her bicycle, her outspoken demands for the vote, and her cry for education and for sexual equality, was a prominent - and sometimes shocking - figure in British and American society in the late nineteenth century. Daring and dynamic, she came to represent the very spirit of the age.

This phenomenon was taken up by writers, both male and female, who found the short-story form ideal for exploring the changing world that was opening up for women. The stories in this anthology examine society through the eyes of the new woman, as she encountered increasing choices in marriage, motherhood, work and love.

With characters ranging from lady detectives and suffragette rebels to femmes fatales, covering subjects such as adulterous liaisons, the pleasures of the single life, the possibilities of same-sex relationships and the joys of shopping, they show women breaking free from convention.