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 - Affairs - An Introduction

2 - The Storm by Kate Chopin

3 - From the Dead by Edith Nesbit

4 - Souls Belated by Edith Wharton

5 - The Legacy by Virginia Woolf

6 - The Pleasant Husband by Marjorie Bowen

7 - Lucy Wren by Ada Radford

8 - Lena Wrace by May Sinclair

9 - The Difference by Ellen Glasgow

10 - Behind the Curtain by Gertrude Barrows Bennett writing as Francis Stevens

11 - The Kiss by Kate Chopin