V. Good Used. 336pp. 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 womanhood itself. Set In Grimy, Fog-ridden London, These Odd Women Range From The Idealistic, Financially Self-sufficient Mary Barfoot And Rhoda Nunn, Who Run A School To Train Young Women In Office Skills For Work, To The Madden Sisters Struggling To Subsist In Low-paid Jobs And Experiencing Little Comfort Or Pleasure In Their Lives. Yet It Is For The Youngest Madden Sister"s Marriage That The Novel Reserves Its Most Sinister Critique. Introduction by Margaret Walters.