This absorbing account of the life and work of Clara Collet, a leading economist, statistician and champion of women's employment, is the first biography of this remarkable woman and reveals through Collet's diaries her fascinating personal life. An early female university graduate (1880), then teacher, she campaigned for the secondary education provision of girls at a time when it was negligible. Her other major contribution was in raising the status of working-class women, becoming a Commissioner for the Royal Commission on Labour (1892). She was close to the family of Karl Marx, particularly with Eleanor Marx, and with Beatrice Webb. Her enduring friendship with the cult Victorian author George Gissing deeply influenced his writing. Her working relationships with Charles Booth, Lloyd George, Ramsay MacDonald and Winston Churchill are also celebrated

This work examines attitudes to the woman question by writers of the Victorian era such as J.S. Mill, H. Fawcett, W.S. Jevons, H. Sidgwick, A. Marshall, the Webbs and Clara Collet. It reveals that feminism and women in political economy were more widely discussed than is sometimes supposed.

Includes both books and articles.

Some of the contents derive from a conference on the work of Charles Booth, and the work of the Charles Booth Research Centre for the Study of Social Investigation at the Open University.

A cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines.