Reader, I married him

The opening chapter looks at the lives of the four novelists themselves: their family homes, personalities, schooling, and early work as writers. It considers how each of these things may have shaped their views on women's place in society during a period when female emancipation was becoming a public debate.

The following chapters set biography largely aside and examine the novels directly. The focus falls on the heroines and on the minor women who surround them. Taken together, these portrayals cover a broad range of women's experiences, offering social observation and comment, but they also shape each author's tone and narrative methods.

The book argues that these writers were far from unified in their attitudes toward emancipation. Their inconsistencies and tensions are not weaknesses but central to the artistic character of their work.