The type-writer girl

The type-writer girl by Grant Allen is a novel written in the late 19th century. It follows Juliet Appleton, a spirited, Girton-educated typist determined to earn her living and keep her independence in London, told with wit, satire, and New Woman verve. Expect lively observations, social comedy, and adventures that test her ideals about work, freedom, and romance. The opening of the novel presents Juliet at twenty-two, newly bereaved and broke, vowing to seek “adventures” and casting a playful, feminist eye over the world—from musing that a woman wrote the Odyssey to staking her own modern quest. She lands a post with fusty solicitors, endures the condescension of clerks and the oily gaze of their chief, then quits in revolt. Overhearing talk of an anarchist colony near Horsham, she pawns her typewriter, cycles south with her devoted bull-pup Commissioner Lin, and joins the earnest but comically rigid community. She works hard, cooks brilliantly, and teaches bicycle lessons, yet balks at their pressures to be “comradely” on demand and at their claims on her private property. After a showdown over her bicycle, she takes her week’s dividend and rides away. On the road back she crashes with a timid fellow cyclist, is kindly rescued by a genial village doctor, and learns the other girl has lost her way—closing the beginning with Juliet bruised but unbowed, still chasing liberty on two wheels.

The type-writer girl, by Grant Allen. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #78662.