Emancypantki (Emancipated Women)

Emancypantki (Emancipated Women), by the acclaimed Polish author Boleslaw Prus, was first published as a serial in the Daily Courier (Kurier Codzienny), 1890-1893, and as a book in 1894. Leading his readers, in a manner reminiscent of Dickens, from an elegant girls’ school in Warsaw to a provincial town—from a magnate’s palace to a boarding house for working women and a secret lying-in hospital for unmarried mothers—Prus explored the choices available to women in his time, and the forces that influenced those choices. An intriguing love story with an ambiguous ending adds spice.