1-150-523 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'A Novel Fact', 1867. An elderly gentleman considers that any book written by a woman must surely be unsuitable reading matter for his own daughters. Women were, at this time, starting to make their mark in the world of literature. Many people, however, retained their prejudices against such 'blue-stockings'. This term for learned woman derives from an eighteenth-century club of literary women in London. From Punch, or the London Charivari, December 21, 1867.