The most notorious of the so-called "New Woman" novels of the 1890s--a type of fiction inspired by contemporary debates about women's education, family life, and sexual independence--The Woman Who Did was controversial from the start and eventually became a bestseller. Determined to arrange her own life, Herminia Barton enters a relationship ouside of marriage with the lawyer Alan Merrick, and the consequences of that decision test her resolve to the very limit. Flying in the face of convention, Allen intended the book as a protest against the subjection of women, but feminists including Millicent Fawcett condemned both Allen and the novel.