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The author seeks to establishe a new category in Victorian fiction with this book: the feminine political novel. By studying Victorian female protagonists who particiate in the public universe conventionally occupied by men - the world of mills and city streets, of political activism and labour strikes, of public speaking and parliamentary debates. she reassesses the public realm as the site of noble and meaningful action for women in Victorian England. Harman examines at length Bronte's ""Shirley"", Gaskell's ""North and South"", Meredith's ""Diana of the Crossways"", Gissing's ""In the Year of Jubilee"" and Elizabeth Robins's ""The Convert"", reading these novels in relation to each other and to developments in the emerging British women's movement. She argues that these texts constitute a counter-tradition in Victorian fiction: neither domestic fiction for fiction about the public ""fallen"" woman, these novels reveal how 19th-century English writers began to think about female transgression into the political sphere and about the intriguing meanings of women's public appearances. The author draws on significant historical research, including materials related to female higher education, the law of ""coverture"" (under which a woman's legal identity was incorporated into that of her husband"", the suffrage movement, and well-known prose works of the period such as Sarah Lewis's ""Woman's Mission"" and Mill's ""Subjection of Women"".