Sublime

Mrs Lemon’s school, the chief school in the county, where the teaching included all that was demanded in the accomplished female – even to extras, such as the getting in and out of a carriage.

Marie Souvestre, the founder and headmistress, was the daughter of the French philosopher and novelist Émile Souvestre. A committed feminist, she believed passionately in educating women to think for themselves, to challenge accepted wisdom, and to assert themselves. These were subversive doctrines to patriarchal Victorians, yet Allenwood succeeded

In 1598 Alice was sent to Mr Brooke, along with another woman, Barbara Allen, who earned thirty shillings from the encounter. The bawd took half, but that still left Barbara with more money than some maidservants earned in a year (although they did get board and lodgings as well as the cash). Mr Brooke was a rich and powerful man, brother to Lord C

A British social service project, run by earnest and rather formidable ladies, called the Charity Organization Society—C.O.S. for short—used to be known among the poor as “Cringe or Starve.”

“Of course. So is Julie. Most of the Proctor women went to Miss Lyon’s seminary—or Mount Holyoke if you prefer,” Aunt Gwyneth replied. “They say Mary Lyon got her idea for a women’s college when she was here, serving as the assistant principal of the Ipswich Female Seminary.”

Jane’s real name is Parvatamma, a prostitute in India who is dying of AIDS and is too sick to work. As a result, Parvatamma and her little girl are extremely poor.

When she was twenty Brontë received a letter from poet laureate Robert Southey saying ‘literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life & it ought not to be.’