In the days when Britain ruled the waves and bestrode the world as its policeman and plunderer in chief it also subjugated half of its own people to second class status. Women were chattel and property. There were some exceptions based on wealth and birthright but for the overwhelming majority your lot was to fall in with the rules and do as you were told. Many did.

But whilst male society sought to place obstacles in the path to equality, it could not deny their literary talents, which many times they circumvented by using male pseudonyms. However, the soaring sales of magazines and periodicals during the Victorian Age meant they had voracious appetites for literature, whatever the sex of its gender.

Dozens of authors appeared to fill the need. Narratives had new ideas. Characters were emboldened by societal changes and the female voice taking responsibility.

The women included here are talents that dazzle. Put them up against anyone and they rise to the top. Whether they remain with an avid readership today or faded to obscurity with the passing of the times their quality remains undimmed.

1 - Women of Wonder - To Make A Long Story Short - An Introduction

2 - Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin

3 - The Story of Sir Bertrand by Anna Laetitia Barbauld

4 - All Souls Eve by Dora Sigerson Shorter

5 - After the Funeral by Mary Butts

6 - Conversation on Conversation by Harriet Beecher Stowe

7 - The Preacher at Hill Station by Katherine Davis Chapman Tillman

8 - The Palace of Death by Emily Bronte

9 - The Lie by Holloway Horn

10 - The Readjustment by Mary Austin

11 - Suggestion by Mrs Ernest Leverson

12 - A Pen and Ink Effect by Frances E Huntley

13 - The Wooing of Pastor Cummings by Georgia F Stewart

14 - My Flirtations by Ella Hepworth Dixon writing as Margaret Wynham

15 - The Three Kisses by Violet Quirk

16 - A Redeeming Sacrifice by Lucy Maud Montgomery

17 - Many Waters Cannot Quench Love by Louisa Baldwin

18 - Aunt Hetty on Matrimony by Fanny Fern, the writing pseudonym for Sarah Payton Parton

19 - Aunt Lindy. A Story Founded on Real Life by Victoria Earle Matthews

20 - Cousin Mary by Mary Russell Mitford

21 - Cuchulain of Muirthemne. The Only Son of Aoife by Lady Augusta Gregory

22 - The Peterkins Decide to Learn the Languages by Lucretia Peabody Hale

23 - My Honoured Master by Catherine Anne Dawson Scott

24 - The Man With No Face by Gertrude Minnie Robins

25 - The Strange Looking Man by Fanny Kemble Johnson

26 - In No Strange Land by Katharine Butler

27 - The Mystery of the Gables by Elsie Norris

28 - Guests Unexpected. A Thanksgiving Story by Maude K Griffin

29 - Breaking the Color Line by Annie McCary

30 - The Casualty List by Winifred Holtby

31 - The Knitted Collar by Mary Anne Hoare

32 - A Knot of Ribbon by Laurence Alma-Tadema

33 - A Dream of Wild Bees by Olive Schreiner

34 - A Lost Masterpiece by Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright writing as George Egerton

35 - The Octoroon's Revenge by Ruth D Todd

36 - The Shape of Fear by Elia W Peattie

37 - Fear by Catherine Wells

38 - The Little Skeleton by Mary Anne Atherstone writing as M A Bird

39 - Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Bronte

40 - The Tyburn Ghost by Wilhelmina FitzClarence, The Countess of Munster

41 - When the Devil Was Well by Gertrude Atherton.wav