Old Maids: Short Stories by Nineteenth Century U.S. Women Writers

At 25 they were 'on the shelf.' But were they embittered spinsters or independent women?The grim image of the 'old maid' as a ridiculous, pathetic, unlovable, unlovely and unloving creature has traditionally shadowed young women. Many have married unhappily, or submitted to constricting domestic roles, rather than face its terrors.Susan Koppelman has discovered and collected this treasury of 'old maid' stories written - often by 'old maids' themselves - between 1835 and 1891 in the USA. With her substantial introduction as a guide, the reader is taken on an illuminating excursion into the parlours of the nineteenth century, as the voices of single women mark out the gradual shift between spinsterhood suffered and independence welcomed.