Customer Reviews

Singled Out

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Although the "all anecdote" format makes the reading a bit choppy, this is a worthwhile glimpse into a slice of history. So many social changes took place due to the loss of men during the "Great War:" women's entrance into the workplace, the professions, politics, as well as the beginning of the breakdown of social class lines, entitlement to old age pensions, and above all, the ability of women to be happy outside the traditional "wife and mother" role. Yes, this book is about England, but it's still worth a read to look back less than 100 years and see how far we've come in what is, after all, a relatively short time.

Nowadays, many women are single either by chance or by choice. We marry later, we marry for love, we marry not at all. Men are around, but they may not be "the one," or are unsuitable for various reasons. Women may decide to concentrate on career, or may have been born with a different genetic makeup.

Singled Out is about an entire generation of British women who, whether they wanted marriage or not, were destined to remain single due to the loss of over a million men within their own age group. Their stories are as varied as they are numerous. Many were engaged, only to lose their beloveds at the Front; some never even had a chance to meet that special someone. In some cases, the Great War gave women opportunities that they never would have dreamed of in other circumstances. Archeologists, stockbrokers and scientists abound within these pages. Lesbians found that they were able to live a bit more openly, too, due to the common occurrence of (and thus fewer raised eyebrows over) women needing to room together for financial and companionship reasons.

Nearly every family in Britain lost someone in the Great War; this is how the women left behind picked up the pieces and moved forward without their men. Because of the sheer volume of stories, the narrative can become a bit confusing at times (I would go back occasionally to remind myself about whom I was reading), but the stories were so compelling on the whole that I now wish to read more about their experiences. Vera Brittain, especially, presents a fascinating life story.

Elegantly written, warm-hearted and thoughtful. An account of the lives of early twentieth century 'spinsters'. A great pleasure and highly recommended.

Virginia Nicholson has used interviews, published and unpublished autobiographies, novels and various records and writings to tell the story of the "Surplus Women." According to the 1921 British census, women outnumbered men by 2 million. Some of these women lost fiancés to World War I, some were prevented from marrying by family responsibilities, and some simply were unable to find a mate. In a society where women were expected to marry and, unless poor, be supported by their husbands, this was a grave crisis, and suggestions to solve it included shipping British women to various places in the Commonwealth to find husbands. As Nicholson recounts, however, a great many women built their own, sometimes very unconventional lives as spinsters, and help create enormous change in British society in the process.

One of the things that makes this book so superb is Nicholson's willingness to enter into the women's lives on their own terms rather than judging them either by contemporary standards or her own preferences. (Nicholson herself is married.) Sex left many of these women in a no-win situation: they were mentally ill if they remained virgins, and sluts if they didn't. She admires the courage of women who made the best of a bad deal, who broke professional barriers, who simply preferred their career to marriage. Many of the women in this book led lives of distinction and attained honors rarely given to women before this time. I think there should be at least a statue to Dame Caroline Haslett, who, along with other female engineers, was determined to create electrical labor-saving appliances to reduce the arduous and never-ending struggle to keep house.

In the United States, the 1950s brought a move to renewed domesticity and early marriage, partly as a reaction to World War II, and temporarily reversed many of the interwar social changes. If this happened in Britain, Nicholson does not address it, although many of her subjects also lived through that period; one wonders whether they felt that they lost ground.

An outstanding piece of social history, especially for those interested in 20th century history, World War I and its after effects, or women's history.

A whole new perspective not often studied by scholars of WWI. The brave British women, these "Surplus Women", who survived The Great War having lost a beloved husband, boyfriend or brother and yet went on to create their own lives while remaining unmarried, come to us fully formed on the pages of Virginia Nicholson's "Singled Out". So many of them carved places for themselves in the "brave new world" of the 1920s and '30s despite prejudice and misunderstanding of the "spinster" or "professional aunt", and here the stories of many of them are told, while Ms. Nicholson explains the forces that both drove them forward and attempted to hold them back.

I highly recommend this to anyone! It's fascinating, a rare look into a rarely profiled generation of brave females whose courage and daring, as well as their desire to live their lives to the fullest, paved the way for the early feminist movements in Britain and helped shape so many of the freedoms and ways of living independently that women of the 21st century oftentimes take too much for granted. Inspirational!

This book was a purchase I made because I read many books on WWI. I thought it would be really interesting to find out how women of similar age got on without a naturally balanced number of men around. The book traces many different women throughout their lives, both before, during and after the war. Although I got quite a few weird looks from my girlfriend whilst I was reading this book, the book met my expectations but I also found the stories somewhat sad. The author points out stories of several women who lost men very close to them during WWI. Some of these women never married or even dated after the war!!! That seems like a very lonely existence that these women could do very little to change without major interruptions to their lives (and by major I mean leaving the U.K. and your family behind to go elsewhere in the Commonwealth to find a mate). On another note, I liked the fact that many of these women had cats as companions; something to which I can relate. The contributions many of these women made to improving the rights of women in the U.K. or changing society's impression of "spinsters" was phenomenally impressive.

I bought this because a friend had an aunt in London who was single for the war. This reads like a scholarly work. Author is always proving she's right with academic arguments. Not enough actual examples for a book this length. I couldn't finish it.