Showing The Awakening by Kate Chopin

First published in 1899, The Awakening is widely regarded as one of the forerunners of feminist literature alongside Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

Over one long, languid summer Edna Pontellier, fettered by marriage and motherhood gradually awakens to her individuality and sexuality and experiences love outside of her passionless marriage. But as she discovers emotional freedom so she comes to realise the true extent of her psychological and social confinement and its terrible consequences for her future. This tender, brilliant, seductive and devastating novel is as beautifully written as it is politically engaging and in a world where fourth-wave feminism sees us hotly debating the inclusion of women on any banknotes The Awakening is as relevant now as when it was first published two centuries ago.