Meet ten of literature’s most iconic heroines, jacketed in bold portraits by female photographers from around the world

‘She wanted to die, and she wanted to live in Paris.’

This is the story of Emma, trapped in a disappointing marriage with a dull country doctor, she dreams for a life more like the sentimental novels she reads. In an attempt to break from the drab reality of her provincial life in Normandy, Emma takes a lover, and disaster soon follows.

Greedy, delusional and selfish, the character of Emma Bovary scandalised readers from the novel’s first publication in 1857, yet her magnetism is undeniable. A landmark work in modern realism, Madame Bovary vibrates with the inner life of a woman hungry for more.

Meet ten of literature’s most iconic heroines, jacketed in bold portraits by female photographers from around the world.