'Outsider', 'outlaw', 'outcast': a woman's reputation was her security and each of these five lost it.

As writers, they made the outsider identity their own and wrote their novels of genius.

They came, they saw and left us changed.

'The work and lives of Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Mary Shelley, Olive Schreiner and Virginia Woolf are well known. Gordon's thesis sets out just how original and brave they were - and at what cost. We owe them much' Joan Bakewell, New Statesman

'Gordon is a natural storyteller, and the lives stir us and fascinate us no matter how well we already know them' Tessa Hadley, Guardian

'Gordon succeeds in showing not only the pain but "the possibilities of the outsider". While distinctive in their voices, these writers converge "in their hatred of our violent world", exposing domestic and systemic violence. Their strength of spirit shines from the pages and through the ages' Anita Sethi, Observer