At the age of twelve, Gloriana de Lara dreams of the day that women are no longer second-class citizens, be able to vote, can aspire to any career open to men. She makes a solemn vow in front of her mother, Speranza, that she will make her dream reality, or die trying. Some years later, she reappears in the guise of Hector D’Strange, and starts her revolution to free women from oppression. Written by gender equality and women’s suffrage activist Lady Florence Dixie in 1890, Gloriana has no shortage of self-confident, heroic and forceful women. ( Mark Nelson)