Evening Class (novel) a Dickensian way, they bump into each other and are affected by the decisions of those around them. It is a story of love and deceit, family drama, wealth and poverty, of friendship and courage. Nora O'Donoghue and Aidan Dunne also appear in "Quentins", another novel by Maeve Binchy, and play a more significant role in "Heart and Soul". The novel heavily inspired the plot of the Danish feature film "Italian for Beginners" (2000), which won a Silver Berlin Bear and several other major international awards. Maeve Binchy was not paid, credited nor informed of this, but was later paid
The Woman Who Did promote women's rights. It certainly created an immediate popular sensation - Flora Thompson for instance describing how, in small-town Hampshire, "copies were bought and handed round until practically everyone of mature age in the village had read and passed judgement on it". However, the novel was also controversial right from the start, with conservative readers as well as feminists criticizing Allen for the heroine he had invented. For example, Victoria Crosse wrote her novel "The Woman Who Didn't" (1895) as a response to Allen's book and Mrs. Lovett Cameron wrote "The Man Who Didn't". Whereas Herminia Barton questions the institution