The First World War deprived Britain of three-quarters of a million soldiers, with as many more incapacitated In 1919 a generation of women who unquestioningly believed marriage to be their birthright discovered that there were, quite simply, not enough men to go round Tracing their fates, Virginia Nicholson shows how the single woman of the inter-war decades had to stop depending on men for her income, her identity and her happiness Some just endured, others challenged the conventions, fought the system and found fulfilment