Marianne Colston (née Jenkins, 1792-1865) married the wealthy Bristol merchant, Edward Francis Colston. Almost immediately, they set off on their Continental tour, with servants in tow. Marianne recorded their travels in her Journal of a Tour, which sadly Special Collections does not own. However, we do have the 50 folio lithographs that accompanied her two-volume set. Marianne was also an amateur painter and sketched her way through Europe. In the hope that her pencil supplied the deficiencies of her pen, she sketched picturesque sights that always appear grand. When people are placed within the scene, they are always small-scale. Here, Marianne is at Marignac, near St. Beat Haute, Garonne, sitting quietly with pencil and pad in hand. Perhaps, it is her husband shading her with the umbrella.]]> Marianne Colston]]> Drawing]]> Mary Read (1695-1721) and Irishwoman, Anne Bonny (1698-1782) were both dressed as boys as children. They continued doing so as adults, and not knowing each other, ended up on the same Caribbean pirate ship captained by Calico Jack Rackham. Read and Bonny’s presence as skilled sailors and fierce fighters ‘directly challenged customary maritime practice’. An account of the pair’s exploits appeared in Defoe’s A General History of the Pyrates, published in 1724. The work was republished many times, in many languages, and it proved that women could rebel against, and experience liberty from, societal norms. Read and Bonny were convicted of piracy in 1720, but escaped the hangman’s noose as they were both pregnant.]]> Daniel Defoe (Edited by Manuel Schonhorn)]]> Books]]> Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) was Virginia Woolf’s older sister, and in her own way was just as successful as her novelist sister. Bell was a painter and interior designer, and was an early member of the Bloomsbury Group, which met at her house in Gordon Square, London. Influenced by artists such as Roger Fry and Duncan Grant, Bell developed her own painting style. She also designed book jackets, some 38 for her sister, Virginia, and the Hogarth Press imprint. She preferred jagged unclean lines that are perversely refreshing. They carry their own power. This is her take on her sister, Virginia’s A Haunted House.]]> Virginia Woolf]]> Book covers]]> Barbara Brookes’s ground-breaking, Ockham Award-winning thematically arranged, A History of New Zealand Women, was published by Bridget Williams Books. Brookes’s work features lawyer Mai Chen and dancer Parris Goebel, among others, who in the 21st century, are making their mark in New Zealand and around the world. The Wellington-based firm, Bridget Williams Books, has to be commended for its commitment to publish such books.]]> Barbara Brookes]]> Book covers]]> Isabella Bird Bishop (1831-1904) in the beginning of her, Life in the Rocky Mountains. While ‘rough travelling’, she met outlaw Jim Nugent, climbed Long’s Peak (the highest mountain in the region), and lived rough at Estes Park. Bishop’s book, along with twelve other travel books she wrote, gained her the distinction of being the first woman Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1892.]]> Isabella Lucy Bird]]> Books]]> A Shropshire Lad, appeared. Housman, an English classical scholar known for his demands for accuracy in all things, disliked William Hyde’s images. He said of them: ‘They were in colour, which always looks vulgar.’ Without doubt, he would have been pleased with Agnes Miller Parker’s (1895-1980) black and white wood engravings, which first appeared in an edition in 1940. The engravings are delicate, match the content exactly, and are superb examples of her artistic skill. Parker’s illustrations to this work have been frequently republished. This is a Folio Society edition of 2014.]]> A.E. Housman]]> Books]]> Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97), as was so often the case, did not receive the same education as her brother. This, along with her father’s shabby treatment of her mother, was the foundation of her indignation against the disparities between men and women. Inspired by her publisher, and the events of the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1791) first, before writing her more well-known treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In the latter text, she argues that women appeared to be ignorant, and were perceived as inferior because of their lack of education. She abhorred the idea that a woman had to be everything a man needed her to be – meek, docile, and compliant; as she writes above ‘all the sacred rights of humanity are violated by insisting on blind obedience…’. Wollstonecraft was a progressive and visionary feminist.]]> Mary Wollstonecraft]]> Books]]> Ada Lovelace (1815-52), daughter of poet, Lord Byron, was home schooled by her mother, Anne Isabella, and a series of governesses. Ada was limited by societal expectations on women, and was not allowed to attend university, so she pursued her studies informally by writing to scholarly family friends. Ada married in 1835, and continued her study of mathematics ‘by correspondence’ with University College of London Professor Augustus De Morgan (1806-71) – she was his only female private pupil. She first met computer scientist, Charles Babbage (1791-1871) in 1833, and went on to collaborate with him on various projects. In 1843, Ada included a computation table in a published paper, and it is regarded as the first computer program. She suffered from ill health most of her life, and died young, aged 36.]]> Christopher Hollings, Ursula Martin and Adrian Rice]]> Book covers]]> Cleopatra (69-30 BC), is often remembered for the wrong reasons. Represented over the centuries in various forms of art – paintings, poetry, plays (as above) – Cleopatra’s supposed beauty, her affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, and her questionable suicide, are usually the focus. However, Cleopatra was an intellect who spoke nine languages; she was politically astute, governing Egypt for 18 years in turbulent times; and she was ruthless, killing three of her siblings to maintain her rule. Despite this, she has been described as a ‘whore’, ‘disgusting’, and ‘wicked’. Let us now remember Cleopatra for her intelligence and her achievements as a ruler.]]> John Dryden]]> Books]]> Aphra Behn (c.1640-1689), the English Restoration playwright, poet, and translator, who rose to fame from obscurity. There are, however, a few facts and firsts to Behn. One fact was she was a spy for Charles II. Indeed, during her lifetime she was known as ‘agent 160’, as well as Ann Behn, Mrs Bean, and Astrea, her pseudonym. She also has the distinction of being one of the first English women to earn a living by her writing, and The Fair Jilt: or, the Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda (1688) was the first English novel written by a female writer. Here is the beginning of this novella, and the last page of her better-known short novel, Oroonoko (1688).]]> [Aphra Behn]]]> Books]]> All the Year Round, Mary Anning (1799-1847) was a ‘self-taught geologist, the daughter of a Lyme carpenter’. Born on the Jurassic Coast of southern England, Anning followed in her father’s footsteps to become a fossil collector and dealer. In 1811, aged only 12, she found the first complete skeleton of an Ichthyosaur, and later, the first British example of a Pterodactyl. As a woman, Anning did not often receive the credit deserved for her scientific discoveries. There is no doubt that she was instrumental in determining ‘scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth’. In 2010, Anning was recognised by the Royal Society as one of the ten women ‘who have most influenced the history of science.’]]> Charles Dickens]]> Periodicals]]> Emma Goldman (1869-1940) emigrated to America, from Lithuania, to live with her sister near New York. Her anarchist views were cemented by reading Russian revolutionary, Peter Kropotkin, her experience of dire working conditions as a seamstress, and the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1886. Goldman was a great orator and travelled the United States lecturing on her beliefs. She was an anti-capitalist, an atheist, a feminist, and she thought violence carried out in the name of fighting for her chosen ideologies was just a means to an end. Goldman spent time in jail for her troubles, and finally in 1919, she was deported from America. J. Edgar Hoover called her one of the ‘most dangerous anarchists’ in the country. She spent her whole life agitating for change.]]> Emma Goldman]]> Books]]> Assertions on Luther (1545) by John Fisher (1469-1535) was printed by Charlotte Guillard (d.1557), who over a lengthy career became one of the most important printers of the Latin Quarter in Paris. It seems Guillard was destined for the print world. After being widowed twice – first from printer Berthold Rembolt, then from Claude Chevallon, a bookseller and printer – she took over both businesses, and ran them efficiently. She owned five printing presses, had 25 employees, and a stock of 13,000 books. The books Guillard produced, like this one, were recognized for their beauty and accuracy.]]> John Fisher]]> Books]]> Margaret Sanger (née Higgins, 1879-1966) was the sixth child of eleven children – her mother, Anne, was pregnant 18 times in 22 years. Not surprisingly, she died of ill-health aged 49, nursed by Margaret. Possibly inspired by this, Sanger left home at 15, trained to become a nurse, and began work in the slums of New York City. In the crowded tenements, Sanger was confronted by women’s ignorance of their sexual health – they tended to use abortion as contraception. Saddened and infuriated, she moved out of nursing, and became a social activist. So began her life-long crusade to educate all American women about family planning. Sanger was the mother of the birth control movement in America, and she was instrumental in the development of the Birth Control Pill in the early 1950s.]]> David M. Kennedy]]> Books]]> Caesar and Cleopatra: A History.
]]>
Bernard Shaw]]> Books]]>
Fanny Burney’s Camilla, which was first published in 1796. Indeed, Austen made reference to Burney’s third novel – subtitled ‘A Picture of Youth’ – in Northanger Abbey: ‘ “And what are you reading, Miss — ?… It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.’ Burney (1752–1840) started ‘scribbling’ early, and over her writing career produced four novels, eight plays, one biography, and volumes of journals and letters. In Camilla, she targets her light and frothy satire on the marriage concerns of the young.]]> Fanny Burney]]> Books]]> Elizabeth Purslowe took over the printing business. This was not an unusual step. Between 1550 and 1650, there were some 130 women in the print trade, and a number took over from their husbands when they died. Other female printers included ‘Widow Sayle’, ‘Widow of J. Blageart’, Alice Norton, and Hannah Allen. Active in London between 1633 and 1646, Elizabeth Purslowe printed 146 texts. Many were outstanding productions like this Fulke Greville edition, which was one of her firsts. Apart from being known as a female printer, Purslowe has the distinction of a slouchy hat named after her: the ‘Purslowe’ hat.]]> Fulke Greville, Baron Brooke]]> Books]]> Amazons was in Homer’s Iliad. Ancient historians Herodotus (5th cent. BC), Polybius (3rd cent. BC), Strabo (1st cent. BC), and Plutarch (1st cent. AD) all wrote of these ‘warrior women’ who were remembered as skilled horsewomen; man-haters, who were fierce and unforgiving in battle. It is easy to dismiss them as a myth. However, with the discovery in recent years of female warrior graves on the Russia-Kazakhstan border, there is now evidence that the Amazons could have existed. The frontispiece of Pierre Petit’s work on Amazons features a breastless Amazon, seated in the foreground, while a battle rages in the background. The most modern iteration of the women is, of course, Wonder Woman (2017), with Gal Gadot in the lead role.]]> Pierre Petit]]> Books]]> Jules Maurice Gaspard]]> Drawing]]> Harriet Tubman’s first act of rebellion was to run away from her owner in 1849. Called the ‘Moses’ of her people, Tubman (c. 1820-1913) was the only woman, and the only black, who became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, She led about 70 slaves, in a dozen or so raids, to their freedom in the north of America. Tubman went on to become a cook, nurse, scout, and spy for the Union Army in the American Civil War (1861-65), and the only woman to lead a troop of some 300 men. After the end of the Civil War, and the emancipation of all slaves, Tubman continued her fight for racial justice. She also campaigned for women’s right to vote. In 2016, the Treasury of the United States of America announced that Tubman would feature on the $20 bill.]]> Catherine Clinton]]> Book covers]]> Queen Christina of Sweden (1629-1689) received all the educational advantages of being one in 17th century Europe. Described by her tutor as ‘not like a female’, Christina became ‘one of the most learned women’ of the time. She inherited the throne aged six when her father died, and from age 18, she ruled Sweden until her abdication in 1654. During her reign, Christina encouraged the sciences, arts, and culture in her Court; she insisted on dressing androgynously; and she refused to marry, apparently having several same-sex relationships in her life. As described in Henri de Valois’s piece, Christina was a ‘SERENISSIMA ac DOCTISSIMA REGINA’ – ‘fairest and most learned Queen’.]]> Henri de Valois]]> Books]]> Christine de Pisan (1364-c.1430) grew up in Charles’s V’s court in Paris, where her father was a physician and astrologer. Unusually, for the time, she received an education, and began to write. Most scholars and authors were unmarried men, but the widow de Pisan managed to make a living from her writing; the first woman to do so in Europe. In her lifetime, de Pisan produced at least 30 books of essays and poetry, her most well-known is The Book of the City of Ladies (1405). In her works, she promoted equality of education for the sexes, objected to the ‘trivialisation of women’s domestic work’, and celebrated female virtues. Despite promulgating these proto-feminist ideas, she never demanded that society change or reform. De Pisan knew her limits.]]> ___]]> Books]]> Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was declared illegitimate after her father, King Henry VIII, had her mother, Anne Boleyn, executed in 1536. Despite this, and after the death of her half-brother and sister, Elizabeth became Queen of England in 1558. Elizabeth has been described as a ‘canny and utterly ruthless’ leader – she led England out of troubled times, and was a religiously tolerant monarch. Elizabeth never married, claiming in a speech to Parliament that she had married England and its people were her children. She gave her name to the Elizabethan Age, and ruled for 45 years. The literature on Elizabeth’s life and times is abundant. Here is Francis Osborne’s Historical Memoires, in which he describes her moderate and stable rule.]]> Francis Osborne]]> Books]]> Dora Russell (née Black, 1894-1986) wed the much older mathematician and philosopher, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) in 1921 because she was pregnant. A progressive, Dora campaigned her whole life on a variety of platforms – birth control, sexual freedom and equality for women, gender equality in education, peace, and at the end of her life, against nuclear armament. She worked hard to come out from behind her husband’s shadow, and despite his support of women’s suffrage, he believed women were the less intelligent half of the species. In the preface of her feminist work, Hypatia, Dora predicted that the book would go the way of its namesake and be torn to pieces; her prediction came true. In the text of the book, she writes in support ‘for women’s sexual freedom and against marriage’.]]> Dora Russell]]> Books]]> Dorothy Richardson’s semi-autobiographical ‘Pilgrimage’ series was published between 1915 and 1967. Interim is the fifth instalment in which she attempts to create a character, Miriam, who embodies the female ‘quest for the essence of human experience’ (J.C. Powys). In literature, Richardson (1873-1957) is important because she was one of the first modern novelists to use a ‘stream of consciousness’ technique in her work. This narrative experiment predates that of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. Richardson actually hated the term, calling it in 1949, ‘that lamentably meaningless metaphor’.]]> Dorothy M. Richardson]]> Book covers]]>