Alfhild Agrell

She was born to Erik Johan Martin and Karolina Margareta Adolphson, who worked as confectioners.

[1][2] After several previous successes, Agrell's play Ensam (Alone) premiered at the Dramaten in Stockholm on 3 February 1886.

The play depicts the socially committed Thora, who has taken care of her illegitimate daughter despite the reluctance of her surroundings.

Agrell was an important contributor to the cause of gender equality in regard to sexuality; in her work, she handles the questions and consequences of sexual injustice, the sexual double standards such as the fact that a woman is subjected to contempt when she does the same thing as a man in sexual matters, the questions of having "a bad reputation", the questions of the blame put on the woman and not the man when a child is born out of marriage, and the difficulties when a woman of the people and a man of the upper classes fall in love and the consequences of such a relationship.

But she was pessimistic of the hope that men and women would ever reach sexual equality, and she doubted that a woman could find such a thing in marriage, where she by law was much restricted and given to her husband's whims.