Twenty-one, passionate and headstrong, Ann Veronica Stanley is determined to live her own life. When her father forbids her from attending a fashionable Ball, she decides she has no choice but to leave her family home and make a fresh start in London. There, she finds a world of intellectuals, socialists, and suffragettes – a place where, as a student in Biology at Imperial College, she can be truly free. But when she meets the brilliant Capes, a married academic, and quickly falls in love, she soon finds that freedom comes at a price.

H. G. WELLS (1866–1946) was a professional writer and journalist who published more than a hundred books.
Margaret Drabble is recipient of many prestigious awards for her writing, which includes works of nonfiction as well as numerous novels.