Wonder of Women - The Darker Sex: Celebrate the true pioneers of female literature

Let’s be clear. We are all equal under the law. However, even in these more modern times that is not an absolute and still remains a distant ambition for many.
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.

They still speak to us with a clear and unique voice.

In this volume we have gathered together stories that reveal a darker side, a more complicated aspect to the nature of women authors.

In their words powerful stories are given greater depth, more nuance and force purely when written through the prism of their individual and unique talents.

1 - Women of Wonder - The Darker Sex - An Introduction

2 - The Lifted Veil - Part 1 by George Eliot

3 - The Lifted Veil - Part 2 by George Eliot

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

5 - Behind the Wall by Violet Jacob

6 - Under The Electrics by Clotilde Graves writing as Richard Dehan

7 - The Shadow on the Blind by Louisa Baldwin

8 - The Palace of Death by Emily Bronte

9 - In the Séance Room by Lettice Galbraith

10 - In the Mist by Mary E Penn

11 - The Face in the Glass by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

12 - The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell

13 - The Strange Looking Man by Fanny Kemble Johnson

14 - Tamar by Lady Eleanor Smith

15 - Sylvia by Bessie Kyffin Taylor

16 - Luz by Elinor Mordaunt

17 - Lena Wrace by May Sinclair

18 - John Charrington's Wedding by Edith Nesbit

19 - The Devil's Mother-in-Law by Fernan Caballeron

20 - The Three Kisses by Violet Quirk

21 - The Last of Squire Ennismore by Charlotte Riddell

22 - Since I Died by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

23 - In Dark New England Days by Sarah Orne Jewett