Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden, and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created...

Dissatisfied with life in her rural Wisconsin life, 18-year-old Caroline "Sister Carrie" Meeber moves to Chicago to live with her sister and work in a shoe factory. It doesn't take long for her to realize that factory work is hard and dirty. After becoming ill and losing her job, Carrie is taken in by a rich, handsome man who pays for her apartment and finds her work as an actress. But Carrie soon finds another man to take care of her, who happens...

Famed author Marianne Winckler goes undercover to investigate the exploitation of the working class in Northern France. She eventually lands a job as a cleaner on the cross-channel ferry and develops close connections with the other cleaning women, many of whom have extremely limited resources and income opportunities. As she learns more about the plight of these workers, Marianne struggles with her deception toward them and tries to rationalize that...

Nacido en el cuarto trasero de la mansión donde su madre trabaja duro, y ella misma en el servicio desde una edad temprana, el encantador y encantado cada vez Eva Luna se escapa a través de la narración de historias opresión. Rolf Carle huye Alemania para América del Sur, y en última instancia trabaja como documentalista, para escapar de los recuerdos de infancia de enterrar a los muertos del campo de concentración. Born in the back room of...

Iris, May, and Ruby are sisters living in Liverpool after WWI. Dutiful, devout Iris runs the household efficiently in place of their deceased mother. Wayward, dreamy May works as a maid but longs to act. And feisty, ambitious Ruby sells corsets to keep the family afloat. With their overbearing father and war-tormented brother, they struggle through poverty, passions, and profound disappointments.

In 1912, rational Fred Fairly, one of Cambridge's best and brightest, crashes his bike and wakes up in bed with a stranger--fellow casualty Daisy Saunders, a charming, pretty, generous working-class nurse. So begins a series of complications--not only of the heart but also of the head--as Fred and Daisy take up each other's education and turn each other's philosophies upside down.

Biddy Millican learns to read and works her way up from laundry girl as she confronts and overcomes the prejudices of nineteenth-century England.