The late-1880s saw the emergence of the independent new woman, capable and eager to earn her own living. Over the next three decades, until the end of World War I, women waited with growing impatience for recognition of their achievements and their rights. Blending fiction and non-fiction writing by women during this period, this anthology interweaves their daily lives and expectations with their imaginative and creative work. It includes diaries, letters, pamphlets, memoirs and fiction. Featuring the work of well-known and lesser-known women writers, poets and activists, such as Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst, Eleanor Marx, the youthful Rebecca West, Dame Ethel Smythe and Ethel Glyn, the book also gives voice to the experiences of the ordinary women with very different lives as it reflects the hesitant march towards emancipation.