Young Diana

Diana May has been discarded by her fiancé, dismissed by her parents as a burden, and ignored by a society that cannot see past her gender. She possesses a keen intellect that no one will acknowledge, until she makes a radical choice: she answers a mysterious advertisement for an assistant to an eccentric scientist operating a hidden laboratory in the Swiss Alps. What follows is part romance, part scientific adventure, part fairy tale of self-discovery. Marie Corelli, the best-selling author of her era, weaves a story that feels surprisingly modern in its insistence that a woman's worth is not determined by marriage or family approval. The science here is wonderfully Victorian, all mysterious experiments and electrical gadgets, but the emotional core is timeless: what happens when a woman decides she is done waiting for permission to matter. Corelli's legions of readers in the 1890s devoured this for its romance and its rebellion.