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.

1 - Women of Wonder - Love - An Introduction

2 - Life of Ma Parker by Katherine Mansfield

3 - Uncle Abraham's Romance by Edith Nesbit

4 - Here We Are by Dorothy Parker

5 - Some Ways of Love by Charlotte Mew

6 - The Muse's Tragedy by Edith Wharton

7 - The Sexton's Hero by Elizabeth Gaskell

8 - A Middle Sized Artist by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

9 - The Mortal Immortal by Mary Shelley

10 - A Spirit Elopement by Clotilde Graves

11 - A Story of a Wedding Tour by Margaret Oliphant

12 - The Locket by Kate Chopin

13 - On the Gull's Road by Willa Cather

14 - The Canary by Katherine Mansfield

15 - May Afternoon by Catherine Wells

16 - The Night Before Thanksgiving by Sarah Orne Jewett

17 - The Oculist by Catherine Wells

18 - The Dream by Mary Shelley

19 - The Dance by Zona Gale

20 - The Dark Cottage by Mary Cholmondeley

21 - The Way the World Is by Zona Gale

22 - Psychology by Katherine Mansfield

23 - The Shape of Fear by Elia W Peattie

24 - Those Who Wait by Ethel Dell

25 - An Unexpected Fare by Mary Tuttiett writing as Maxwell Gray

26 - A New England Nun by Mary E Wilkins Freeman

27 - White Magic by Ella D'Arcy

28 - A Symphony in Lavender by Mary Wilkins E Freeman

29 - The Mass for the Dead by Edith Nesbit

30 - Fantomina or, Love in a Maze - Part 1 by Eliza Haywood

31 - Fantomina or, Love in a Maze - Part 2 by Eliza Haywood