Unmarried women – so-called ‘spinsters’ – have often been represented unkindly in books, portrayed as undesirable and lonely. Finding a husband and having children – if the tacit rules of 20th century life were to be believed – were the rites of passage for any self-regarding woman. Those who followed a different path were considered by the more traditional members of society to have been ‘left on the shelf’. 

Looking back through a modern lens, however, it’s clear that readers have reclaimed the word as a sub-genre of its own; ‘spinster lit’ can be seen as an attempt to challenge misconceptions about the lives of unmarried, often middle-aged women, especially in the mid-to-late 20th century.

Online blogs and forums suggest that Booker-nominated author Barbara Pym has been crowned the ‘queen of spinster lit’, as her novels often include unmarried female characters who have rich and vibrant lives. Camilla Nelson, writing in the Conversation, described Pym’s spinsters as ‘consistently fulfilled and satisfying’, while Ginny Hogan, writing in Electric Literature, said, ‘I see in her characters spinsters of the type I aspire to be: incisive, busy, and fine with or without a partner. Pym was ahead of her time in pointing out how inglorious coupledom was. So ahead, in fact, that we haven’t yet caught up to her.’

Although many of us still find ourselves under pressure to find a partner and start a family, it has become socially acceptable to stay single for longer. According to statistics from Our World in Data, ‘Of the women born in 1940 in the UK, more than 90% were married by age 30… Meanwhile, among those born in 1990, only about 29% of women were married by age 30.’

As the annual fervour around Valentine’s Day builds once more, we thought it was time to celebrate some of the spinsters who play starring roles in Booker-nominated novels. These are unattached women who push up against social and romantic mores, and are ultimately striving to find a way to live on their own terms, whether that’s in England in the 1850s, the Netherlands in the late 1940s, or contemporary Ukraine on the verge of war.

Rhine Journey by Ann Schlee

Rhine Journey follows the story of Charlotte Morrison, an unmarried woman in her mid-40s living during the socially constrictive Victorian era. While on a paddle steamer travelling down the Rhine in Germany with her brother and his family, Charlotte spots a man whom she believes resembles a past lover. As the stranger starts to haunt her dreams, Charlotte’s previously hidden desires begin to surface, unsettling and overtaking her. 

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1981, the book unearths the repressed feelings that have plagued Charlotte throughout her life. Now financially independent, Charlotte has lived her life caring for others and grapples with whether to accept the expected standards of the time or carve out her own identity.

In an article written for The Booker Prizes, Lucy Scholes said: ‘Without ever ringing untrue to the period, it’s a tale of female rage and agency, exploring how someone who’s been disenfranchised for so long that they’ve lost much of their own sense of self, might go about salvaging what’s left of their identify and reclaiming it as their own.’

A Green Equinox by Elizabeth Mavor

Hero Kinoull is an antiquarian bookseller who lives in a quaint English town. Between the spring and autumn equinoxes of a single year, Hero’s life takes a dramatic turn. Already entangled in a secret affair with Hugh Shafto, an art curator, Hero starts to fall for his straight-talking wife Belle, as well as Hugh’s widowed mother, Kate.

A Green Equinox was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1973. Elizabeth Mavor was already known for writing about spirited and unconventional women and Hero is no exception, as she defies expectations and follows her own desires.

Writing in the Guardian, John Self said: ‘“Time in its rather shocking way seems to normalise practically everything,” we’re told, and to fight this the characters challenge stereotypes of masculine and feminine in a way that is as much about flouting convention as it is about sexuality and gender. A Green Equinox is a book whose transgressive nature slips by the reader easily through the comedy, colour and final tragedy of its telling.’

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

Barbara Pym was called ‘the most underrated writer of the century’ by none other than Philip Larkin, while he was Chair of the Booker Prize judges in 1977. Larkin was part of the panel that shortlisted what was considered to be Pym’s comeback novel, Quartet in Autumn – which was published following years of rejections from publishers after her writing fell out of fashion.

The book follows four office workers – two women and two men – on the verge of retirement as they contend with the perils of ageing. All living alone, with three unmarried and one a widower, the quartet go about their ordinary lives as Pym depicts each one’s eccentricities and preoccupations. While melancholic, and considerably darker than Pym’s earlier works, the book ends on a hopeful note, with one of the main characters, Letty, realising  ‘life still held infinite possibilities for change’.

Ysenda Maxtone Graham, writing in the Times, said: ‘This is my favourite Barbara Pym novel because it’s not cluttered up with unrequited love, or indeed any love at all. The four main characters’ lives are drained of love. That one of them once offered to make a cup of tea for one of the others is what counts for kindness and warmth in their desiccated lives.’

Hannah Rosefield wrote in the New Yorker that ‘That word “spinster” is key to understanding Pym’s persistent and seemingly resurgent appeal… her spinsters remain spinsters, and the breaking off of an engagement often produces more celebration than its announcement.’

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

Winner of the Booker Prize in 1984, Hotel du Lac was described by the Booker judges as ‘a work of perfect artifice’. The book depicts the messy life of Edith Hope, a romance novelist who is sent off by her fed-up friends to a luxury hotel in Switzerland to reflect on her troubled behaviour. Her stay is anything but dull as she becomes entangled in various residents’ lives.

As she reflects on her identity and the consequences of her actions, Edith questions whether settling for a convenient but lacklustre relationship is something she can endure. Ultimately, she chooses to abandon societal expectations of marriage and follow her own path.

Booker Prize shortlisted author Anne Tyler wrote in the New York Times, ‘…in Hotel du Lac, Miss Brookner’s most absorbing novel, the heroine is more philosophical from the outset, more self-reliant, more conscious that a solitary life is not, after all, an unmitigated tragedy.’

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Translated from Polish, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2019, with author Olga Tokarczuk also winning both the International Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature the previous year. Set in a remote Polish village, the book follows Janina, an eccentric woman in her 60s who lives alone. After a series of murders plague the small village, Janina decides to investigate, certain she knows who the culprit is.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a subversive neo-noir with a rather unreliable narrator. Singer-songwriter Dua Lipa has praised the book’s assertive protagonist: ‘I loved Janina Duszejko, the opinionated and eccentric protagonist whose fixations on the radical 18th century poet William Blake, the rights of animals, and the use of astrology to solve crimes take this book in unexpected directions at every turn.’

Michael Cronin, writing in the Irish Times, said: ‘Tokarczuk’s singular achievement is to show how the marginalised, the disregarded, the despised have access to ways of knowing that are outside the perimeters of conventional thinking… Like her heroine, who sees everything as connected to everything else and every event bound up by a “complex cosmos of correspondences,” Tokarczuk has a compelling capacity to seek out parallels or juxtapose stories or experiences that constantly draw the reader off trail.’

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Isabel lives alone in her late mother’s house, isolated and repressed, her life consisting only of routine and discipline. It’s not until her older brother, Louis, introduces his flamboyant new girlfriend, Eva, into Isabel’s life that her facade begins to falter.

Set in the Netherlands just after the Second World War, The Safekeep is a tale of hidden desire and obsession. As Isabel slowly starts to soften and open herself up to the world, her life takes her into unexplored territory. Van der Wouden’s debut novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024 and won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2025. 

Writing in the New York Times, Lori Soderlind said: ‘The vivid, tense character of Isabel is the first great achievement in The Safekeep; her fears and her worries and her isolation, her determination to stay in her grief and shut others out, the way this armour slowly and then quickly cracks apart.’

Endling by Maria Reva

Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2025, Endling revolves around three Ukrainian women caught up in the marriage industry, earning money from men seeking Ukrainian wives. 

Unbothered by love and relationships, Yeva is a scientist travelling across the country, desperately trying to save multiple rare species of snails. She meets two sisters, Nastia and Sol, who have been inspired by their activist mother to expose the marriage industry’s exploitative nature. Containing bizarre kidnapping plots and subverting the damsel in distress stereotype, Endling follows the three determined women as they journey through a nation on the verge of war.

According to Akhila Ramnarayan, writing in Frontline, ‘You cannot help but marvel at Reva’s stunningly original premise, her rapidly paced, oh-so-dexterous prose, and her ability to animate a truly unforgettable constellation of misfits. The three female protagonists are distinctly etched, their initial reservations about one another melting into prickly, tender loyalty, even trust, as the novel progresses.’

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

Thirty-four-year-old American spy Sadie Smith is sent by her mysterious employers to infiltrate a commune of radical activists in a remote part of France. Using her skills of seduction and charm, she attempts to fool the reclusive leader, Bruno Lacombe.

While details about Sadie’s background are minimal due to her profession, she is confident and self-assured, though not above taking part in morally questionable behaviour to get what she wants. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024, the judges called Sadie ‘an extraordinary creation: sharp-minded, iron-willed, accustomed to moving fast and breaking things.’

Dwight Garner writing for the New York Times said: ‘She is already one of the coldest customers serious American fiction has seen in recent years. The isolation, the danger and the emotional hardships of her work (including unwelcome sex) roll off her shoulders. She likes what she does. She has a knack for it.’