Thousands of Noras: Short Plays by Women, 1875-1920 provides an international collection of dramatic works written by women that draw attention to the power and range of voices of several generations of women writers. Sketches, monologues, duologues and plays from the United States, England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are represented. It includes works by playwrights considered marginal, as well as lesser-known works by established writers such as Elizabeth Baker, Catherine Amy Dawson-Scott, Ruth Draper, Miles Franklin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Amy Levy, Katherine Mansfield, and Netta Syrett.
Divided into three thematic sections, this volume includes plays that focus on women's aspiration for higher education, their need for paid employment, and the disillusionment often experienced in the working world. It offers pieces that address social activism-campaigns for the vote, for national independence in Ireland, for temperance, and for workers' rights. And it presents lighter fare where writers satirize women's clubs, contemporary fads, and even theatre-going and playwriting.