Combining social history with feminist analysis, this study centres on the debates and ideologies of a radical group of London intellectuals of the 1880s, which included such figures as H.G.Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Havelock Ellis, Beatrice Webb, Rebecca West and others. Contents: A Derbyshire idyll—Olive Schreiner and the new men—The uses of principle 1 : Havelock and Edith—Eleanor and Edward : end of the long, sad years—The uses of principle 2 : H.G.'s new utopia—The sage and the woman rebel—Conclusion: The new women and the old men.