The six women writers discussed in this book - Olive Schreiner, Edith Wharton, Flora Macdonald Mayor, Katherine Mansfield, Dorothy L.Sayers and Antonia White - are all post-Victorian, and lived through a time when ideas about class, religion and the family were changing drastically. Middle-class women were becoming much more mobile, adventurous and independent, but they were still expected to lead different lives from men and be perfect wives and mothers. All six writers suffered from these strains, and commented in different ways on what was happening to the post-Victorian woman. Merryn Williams gives an account of each woman's literary achievement and shows how all the women dealt with a society that gave them confused and contradictory messages. In so doing, she gives a remarkably full picture of women emerging from Victorianism and entering the sexual wilderness.