Ethel Carnie Holdsworth's 1925 novel, This Slavery, is a radical feminist and socialist tale of love, loss, poverty and politics. The action follows two sisters, mill-girls Hester and Rachel Martin, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when a fire at the mill leaves them unemployed. As the material poverty of their home-life deepens and the girls are forced to confront the difficulties of their economic circumstances, Hester and Rachel make romantic and political choices that will place them on opposite sides of the great class divide.