Yvette Williams (1929–2019) was the first woman from New Zealand to win an Olympic gold medal (Helsinki, 1952), and to hold the world record in the women’s long jump. When she retired in 1954, she was ranked number one in world track-and-field history in the long jump, fifth in the pentathlon, 12th in the discus throw, and 19th in the shot put. In 1953, she was awarded an MBE; in 2011, she was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit; and in 2019, she was posthumously awarded a Damehood. This iconic image depicts Williams training for the long jump at St Clair Beach, Dunedin.]]> E.A. Phillips photographer]]> Photographs]]> Ida Pfeiffer (1797-1858), wrote in her Visit to Iceland (1852) ‘When I was but a little child, I had already a strong desire to see the world’. Released from an unhappy marriage, and with the education of her sons finalised, Pfeiffer eventually realised her dream of travelling to the Holy Land. In 1842, she travelled to Istanbul and continued on to Palestine and Egypt. After arriving home, she did not stop. Over her lifetime, Pfeiffer visited Scandinavia and Iceland; made a first trip around the world taking in Brazil, Tahiti, and Greece; and a second visiting equatorial Borneo (the first Western woman to do so), California, and Peru. Despite all Pfeiffer’s courageous activities, and writings, she was never accepted into the Royal Geographical Society. This book is an 1852 reprint of her Holy Land adventures.]]> Ida Pfeiffer]]> Books]]> Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) wrote her classic anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with a definite purpose in mind. In 1850, she wrote to the editor of the anti-slavery journal, The National Era: ‘I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak... I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.’ First appearing in serial format (for which she was paid $400), the novel was published in 1852. It was extremely popular, and controversial, especially in the South. It sold 10,000 copies the first week. Over the next year, it sold 300,000 copies in America, and over one million copies in Britain. Because there was no international copyright law, the book was pirated. This edition – with George Cruikshank’s illustrations – is a pirate copy, printed by Cassell in London in 1852. Stowe did not receive a penny for it.]]> Harriet Beecher Stowe]]> Books]]> Helen Kapp (1901-1978) was an artist who studied at Slade School of Art, and the Central School of Arts and Craft in Paris, where she met Modigliani. At one stage, she was director of the Wakefield City Art Gallery, Yorkshire, and first director of Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Westmorland. Kapp’s work, Toying with a Fancy, began ‘out of a cloud of Drambuie on a crisp snowy Yorkshire night’. The result gave her license for satire. The images carry a playful viciousness, something akin to those by German artist, George Grosz. This book is a presentation copy to Charles Brasch, who at one stage tried to organise an artistic residency for Kapp in New Zealand.]]> Helen Kapp]]> Books]]> Zelda Fitzgerald (1900-48) grew up in Alabama, where women were expected to be meek, mild, and decorous. She was nothing of the sort. Zelda met her future husband, Scott, in her late teens, and the married pair became celebrity New York drunks, the life of any party. Zelda was Scott’s muse, but from her diaries she unwittingly supplied Scott with material for his novels, like This Side of Paradise. At times, he uplifted whole lines of prose. Zelda found this out, and commented, in a review of one of her husband’s books, that ‘plagiarism begins at home’. However, Zelda was an author in her own right, and spent much of her life trying to come out from behind the shadow of her husband’s success. Largely unappreciated in her own time, Zelda became a feminist icon in the 1970s.]]> F. Scott Fitzgerald]]> Book covers]]> Boudica became Queen of the Iceni, a Celtic tribe, after her husband died in 60 AD. Under the command of the Roman general, Suetonius (b. 10 AD), all Icenian lands were consequently confiscated. A woman in charge was a ‘Roman’s worst nightmare’, so Boudica was publicly flogged, and her daughters were raped. Humiliated, Boudica sought revenge by amassing an army, and sacking the Roman stronghold of Colchester. She then made her way to London, razing Roman towns along the way. In London, Boudica met with Suetonius and his army. The Roman ‘killing-machine’ went into action, and the Celts were annihilated. Here is Tacitus’s account (c.100 AD) of Boudica’s pre-battle speech. The Roman historian is probably putting words in her mouth.]]> Cornelius Tacitus]]> Books]]> Sappho (c.630-570 BC) was a talented poet, known for her technical skill in verse. She was much loved and honoured by her contemporaries, and because she wrote about female love and desire, she was ahead of her time. Sappho portrayed women in love rather than as objects desired by men. In the last two hundred years or so, the content of Sappho’s poetry has meant that she has become an embodiment of female homosexuality – think of the words ‘sapphic’ and ‘lesbian’. She may have been gay, straight, or bisexual. Whatever her sexual orientation, Sappho should be remembered for the ‘outstanding technical and aesthetic quality of her poetry’. Despite only 650 lines surviving of the 10,000 Sappho composed, her work has influenced poets from antiquity right through to modern times.]]> [Anacreon and Sappho]]]> Books]]> The Walls Do Not Fall (1944) is the first book in Hilda ‘H.D.’ Doolittle’s Trilogy, a personal poetic response to WWII. This 43-section poem by American poet, Doolittle, was dedicated to her lover, Bryher (Winifred Ellerman). For ‘H.D’ (1886-1961), it all started in 1911, at the Eiffel Tower restaurant in Soho, London. There, she met the Imagist poet Ezra Pound who, as a supporter and friend, conferred on her the term ‘H.D. Imagiste’, which later was shortened to her pen-name ‘H.D’. An important feminist poet, ‘H.D’ was the first woman to be granted the American Academy of Arts and Letters medal.]]> H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)]]> Book covers]]> Murasaki Shikibu (born c. 978) is not the real name of the Japanese woman who wrote, what some believe to be, the first ever novel. Unconventionally, Murasaki was raised in her father’s household, and in a time when women were considered to lack real intelligence, she learnt the difficult language of Chinese alongside her brother. After leaving home, Murasaki became a lady-in-waiting in the Empress’s Court, and began writing The Tale of Genji in about 1000. On completion, the novel had over 1000 pages and 400 characters. Although the plotline of the book is lacking, the characters are well-developed, and it is considered to be a masterpiece. Uniquely, this ‘first novel’ was written by a woman, ostensibly for, other women. This copy is sinologist, Arthur Waley’s, translation.]]> Murasaki Shikibu (Translated by Arthur Waley)]]> Book covers]]> Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) grew up poor in Maine. Her writing career launched proper when she entered her poem ‘Renascence’ (1912) in a competition. She did not win, but her reputation as an independently minded woman who wrote about female sexuality, and played with the ‘conventional gender roles in poetry’, began to form. Millay, a bisexual, insisted on being called Vincent, and she became ‘a spokesperson for women’s rights and social equality’. She married in 1923, the same year that she won the Pulitzer Prize, and her feminist husband took care of all the domestics of life so Millay could concentrate on her writing. Harriet Monroe, an editor of this Anthology, described her as the ‘greatest woman poet since Sappho’.]]> Edited by Harriet Monroe and Alice Corbin Henderson]]> Books]]> Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) wrote five novels. Her success was such that writers like John Keats and Sir Walter Scott heaped praise on her. To Keats she was ‘Mother Radcliffe’. Scott proclaimed her the first poetess of romantic fiction, going further, in 1824 to state: ‘Mrs Radcliffe, as an author, has the most decided claim to take her place among the favoured few, who have been distinguished as the founders of a class, or school.’ That class or school was the Gothic novel, of which she was a pioneer. The Mysteries of Udolpho, which carries Radcliffe’s narrative technique of ‘explained supernatural’ was her fourth and most popular novel. Published in 1794 in four volumes, the London firm of G.G. and J. Robinson paid her £500 for the manuscript. This is the first edition, volume one.]]> Ann Radcliffe]]> Books]]> Hypatia was born in Alexandria, Egypt, part of the Roman Empire, in around 370AD. She was a Neoplatonist and pagan, and taught mathematics and philosophy, mainly to Christian students. Hypatia wrote several commentaries on mathematical works during her career, one of which was an edited version of Claudius Ptolemy’s Almagest. Here, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall outlines Hypatia’s popularity, and how people ‘most illustrious for their rank or merit were impatient to visit the female philosopher’. Highly respected for her intellect, she acted as counsel to various politicos in Alexandria, something that would ultimately lead to her murder by an irate Christian mob. Hypatia was the ‘first woman to make a substantial contribution to the development of mathematics.’]]> Edward Gibbon]]> Books]]> Teuta (reign 231-227BC), became Queen of the Illyrian tribe of the Ardiaei (modern day Albania) upon the death of her husband, Agron. Piracy was legal for the Illyrians, and Teuta encouraged and supported her navy’s piratical pursuits in the Mediterranean Sea. As Greek historian, Polybius (209-125BC) reported, Rome wanted the pirate Queen Teuta to cease and desist, and sent two ambassadors to implore her to stop. Unfortunately for them, she captured one and killed the other. What is notable about Polybius’s account of Teuta’s exploits is the disparaging language he used to describe her behaviour. He portrayed women in general as ‘carriers of disturbing irrationality’ and ‘easily overcome by emotion’ (Eckstein, 1995). Teuta was just a woman in charge, which was anathema to most men of the time.]]> [Polybius]]]> Books]]> Ursula K. Le Guin (née Kroeber, 1929-2018) read Ghandi, Murray Bookchin, and Peter Kropotkin, in preparation to write her utopian novel, The Dispossessed. In the novel, Le Guin writes about an anarchist society on the planet, Anarres, where there is ‘no government, church, or ruling class’ (Jaeckle, 2009). She explores the freedoms experienced in an anarchist society, and the opposite in a non-anarchist state. More an imaginative anarchist than an active one, Le Guin writes works containing themes associated with the philosophy of anarchism. The Dispossessed, first published in 1974, was a vehicle to bring the ideas of anarchism to a contemporary audience of science fiction readers; Le Guin said it was her ‘reaction to the Vietnam War’.]]> Ursula Le Guin]]> Book covers]]> Robin Hyde (1906–1939) was the pen name of Iris Guiver Wilkinson, born in Cape Town, but later moving to New Zealand when she was very young. The Desolate Star was Hyde’s first poetry book, and it appeared in 1929.]]> Robin Hyde]]> Book covers]]> Charlotte MacDonald’s ground-breaking The Book of New Zealand Women/Ko Kui Ma te Kaupapa, co-edited with Merimeri Penfold and Bridget Williams, was published in 1991 by Bridget Williams Books. This volume carries biographical details on a wide range of women. MacDonald’s work runs from Caroline Abraham to Adele Younghusband.]]> Charlotte MacDonald. Edited by Merimeri Penfold and Bridget Williams]]> Book covers]]> Marianne Moore’s The Arctic Ox, a collection of poems that appeared in 1964, the first for her in seven years, since her successful Like a Bulwark (1957). Moore was a great lover of nature and was a frequent visitor to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In this volume, Moore not only poeticises chameleons, jellyfish, a giraffe, and the Arctic Ox (or goat), but also baseball, which was another of her passions. In 1951, she won the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award for her Collected Poems (1951).]]> Marianne Moore]]> Book covers]]> Gertrude Bell was one of the most potent British influences in the Near East & one of the greatest women travellers of all time.’ Bell (1868-1926) was like her compatriot in the desert, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia): an Oxford graduate, archaeologist, secret agent, Foreign Office employee, and inveterate traveller. Indeed, to Lawrence (and others) she was ‘Bell of Baghdad’. Bell’s early expeditions in the Middle East, which included meeting and conversing with Bedouin tribesmen, resulted in her Syria: The Desert and the Sown (1907), of which this is a later reprint. Bell continued to have immense influence in Arab and Iraq affairs until her death in 1926.]]> Gertrude Lowthian Bell]]> Books]]> Baroness (Lady) Anna Brassey (1839-1887), who finally got the opportunity in November 1878 to visit Cyprus, Constantinople, and Greece in her motor schooner Sunbeam. Illustrated throughout, the text in journal form is packed full of social comment; individuals met and described; places of interest (Temple of Theseus; Messina); and notes on local customs and traditions. Prior to this trip, in 1876 and 1877, Brassey and her husband circumnavigated the world, and her account, A Voyage in the Sunbeam (1878), was so successful that it made her famous. The cover design of this first edition is by the French artist, Gustave Doré.]]> Mrs Brassey]]> Books]]> Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, and effort from Drs Erik Olssen, Dorothy Page, and George Griffiths, Ian Church, and Jane Thomson (editor). Two women who had a quiet influence on Dunedin’s cultural life were Dora and Mary de Beer, sisters of Esmond. Dora (1891-1982) and Mary (1890-1981) never married, and for the most part lived in London, except for their travels overseas. Robyn Notman’s article gives greater detail on the lives and activities of these remarkable women]]> Edited by Jane Thomson]]> Books]]> Alwilda, whose courage is said to have equalled or surpassed her male counterparts; Grace O’Malley or Gráinne Mhaol (1530-1603), who led pirate ships off the west coast of Ireland; cross-dressing Englishwoman Ann Mills (18th century), who is usually depicted holding the decapitated head of a Frenchman; Ching Shih (1775-1844), Chinese pirate, who had up to 40,000 people working for her; and American-born pirate Rachel Wall (b. 1760), the last woman to be hanged in Massachusetts.]]> Joan Druett]]> Book covers]]> Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), had two distinct periods of creative work: 1912-1925, and from 1936 until her death in 1966. Strict censorship, and the fact that her emotive writings did not sit well with the Russian State, meant that much of her work was not readily available until a general thawing in Russia, post Stalin. Akhmatova was a courageous woman, choosing to stay and live in her native Russia, rather than emigrate. She stands as one of the most significant modern Russian poets, and with her poetic sensibilities, and economic restraint, it is easy to see why Charles Brasch had this volume in his library. The English translator is Richard McKane.]]> Anna Akhmatova]]> Book covers]]> Freya Stark (1893-1993) travelled to remote ‘blank spots’ in and around Luristan (western Persia), and the Valley of the Assassins on the Caspian Coast. Her first book, The Valley of the Assassins (1934), earned her high praise. The Middle East captivated her, and Stark really did take up the mantle of traveller extraordinaire vacated by Gertrude Bell. Seen in the Hadhramaut was the result of two ground-breaking expeditions she undertook in unexplored areas of Arabia in 1935 and 1938. She travelled with little or no baggage, and was renowned for her attire: bold French designer dresses, including a compulsory silk one. Dame Freya Stark died in 1993, aged 100.]]> Freya Stark]]> Books]]> Marguerite Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943), known as Radclyffe, thought of herself from an early age as a ‘masculine female’. Probably dyslexic, and not really an intellectual, she did spend a lot of time studying the idea of self, especially in relation to her cross-gender existence. Hall’s attitude to ‘selfhood’ pervaded all her writing. In 1928, her most famous novel, The Well of Loneliness, was published. The story follows the hero/ine, Stephen Gordon, a ‘sexual invert’, a woman who dresses as a man and pursues an intimate relationship with a woman. Famously, the last line of the novel reads: ‘Give us also the right to our existence’. The novel was part of the nascent ‘enterprise of developing a lesbian public culture’ (Dellamora, 2011). The book was promptly banned. Pictured on the cover is Hall with her long-term partner, Una Troubridge (1887-1963).]]> Richard Dellamora]]> Book covers]]> Katherine Philips (1631–1664), who was known as ‘Orinda’. ‘The Matchless Orinda’ also did translations. These included Corneille’s Pompée, the first rhymed version of a French tragedy in English, as well as the first English play written by a woman to be performed on the professional stage. This folio edition of her posthumously produced Poems was edited by her friend, Sir Charles Cotterell, Master of Ceremonies at the court of Charles II. The large folio format is important. It not only reflected her reputation in refined literary circles, but also her standing with her publishers, who no doubt recouped their investment. Here is the second edition, which not only reconfirmed her popularity but also helped establish in print her poetic legacy.]]> Katherine Philips]]> Books]]>