It's the 1950s and Irene Tanner, the granddaughter of a stoker, has managed to survive the Blitz, fight her way out of a dreary lower middle-class background, and make her way at Oxford. But just as she's about to complete her studies and embark on a literary career, she stumbles into an unwanted pregnancy. Abortion was illegal in Britain in those days. But Irene is determined to live her life by her own lights. Originally published in 1988 and long out of print, Her Own Terms is an unjustly forgotten feminist classic whose brilliant and sympathetic protagonist represents a generation of ambitious women.