ABSTRACT
When The Moonstone was appearing as a serial in Dickens's All the Year Round between January and August 1868, the movement for female enfranchisement was growing rapidly (and attracting controversy), and a second Married W omen's Property Committee had begun a renewed campaign for reform from its base in Manchester.1 In the months following the constitution of this new committee and the tabling of the second Married Women's Property Bill in the House of Commons, Mill's The Subjection of Women (written some years earlier) was finally published, Barbara Bodichon's Brief Summary (Appendix 1) was reprinted, fierce debate raged in the Houses of Parliament, thousands of pamphlets were distributed, letters were written and petitions circulated, and numerous articles appeared, both in support of the reform and in opposition to it.2
