Ann Veronica

Ann Veronica is a New Woman novel by H.G. Wells. Ann Veronica describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty," against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contemporary problem of the New Woman. It is set in Victorian era London and environs, except for an Alpine excursion. Ann Veronica offers vignettes of the Women's suffrage movement in Great Britain and features a chapter inspired by the 1908 attempt of suffragettes to storm Parliament. Mr. Stanley forbids his adult daughter, a biology student at Tredgold Women's College and the youngest of his five children, to attend a fancy dress ball in London, causing a crisis. Ann Veronica is planning to attend the dance with friends of a down-at-heel artistic family living nearby and has been chafing at other restrictions imposed for no apparent reason on her.