The theme of The Crowded Street, 1924, is one that is familiar from other Persep
hone novels: it was then assumed that young women would stay at home while look
ing for a husband. Muriel, who believes that 'men do as they like' whereas women
'wait to see what they will do', lives in a town in Yorkshire waiting - for wha
t? She tries to conform to the values of her snobbish, socially ambitious mother
; she tries to be 'attractive' to men; eventually she is rescued, by her friend
Delia, a young woman who is in some ways a portrait of Vera Brittain.