Miss Nobody

Ethel Carnie (1886-1962) was a working-class writer and socialist activist who campaigned for social and economic justice and the rights of working-class men and women. She wrote at least ten novels. Belinda Webb's debut novel, A Clockwork Apple (Burning House), was published in 2008. She has written on social, literary, and current affairs and came across Ethel Carnie through doctoral research at Kingston University. Nicola Wilson, University of Reading, writes and has published research on working-class fiction and writing. In 2011 she introduced and edited Ethel Carnie Holdsworth's 1925 novel, This Slavery (Trent). She is Series Editor of The Ethel Carnie Holdsworth Series.

A centenary edition of the 1913 novel, Miss Nobody, by Ethel Carnie (later Ethel Carnie Holdsworth), widely believed to be the first published novel written by a working-class woman in Britain. Miss Nobody charts the fortunes of the independent Carrie Brown, a former 'scullery drudge' turned oyster shop owner from Ardwick, Greater Manchester. Schooled in the popular romances of cheap yellow-backed novelettes, Carrie decides to sell up and leave the grey city of Manchester when she receives a surprising offer of marriage from a country farmer. The plot sees Carrie struggling to reconcile herself to the 'mixed up' reality of marriage and the loneliness of country life, and ultimately results in her striking out on her own. The story describes Carrie's picaresque adventures as she strives to find love and self-fulfilment in a harsh and oftentimes bitter world.