As I said, if you put the comment in context, the fact that they are even suggesting that some girls might like it is a little bit of emancipation. Full women'

As I said, if you put the comment in context, the fact that they are even suggesting that some girls might like it is a little bit of emancipation. Full women's suffrage was still 15 years away, the feminism movement over forty years away. The suffragette movement was at its most active at this time: this book was published the same year that Emily Davison died trying to throw a suffragette banner over the King's horse. HG Wells was probably a feminist: he certainly had affairs (and fathered children) with a number of prominent feminists of the time. He was certainly a socialist and a member of The Fabian Society: his books tackle many of the political problems of the time. Once you factor this in, the meaning of "the better sort" of girl and "rare gifted women" becomes far more interesting.