‘This most welcome reissue must be one of the most compelling and perceptive books of informal literary criticism ever produced,’ wrote the critic Elizabeth Young when A Very Great Profession: The Woman’s Novel 1914-39 , first published in 1983, was reprinted a few years later. She went on: ‘Ranging through a variety of themes such as the Great War, the servant problem, psycho-analysis, sexuality and feminism, Nicola Beauman examines their effects upon the characters created by authors as diverse as Virginia Woolf, EM Delafield and Elinor Glyn. An astute critic, she produces an unforgettable picture of the lives of middle-class women during this period (inspired, she says, by Brief Encounter ).