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]]> 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]]> 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]]> Janet Frame (1924-2004), Nene Janet Paterson Clutha is certainly one of New Zealand’s best known novelists and short story writers. Her reputation is international, and there is high regard for all her work, especially the autobiographical sequence: To the Is-land, An Angel at my Table, and The Envoy from Mirror City. While Frame’s The Lagoon and Other Stories (1951) gained her prizes, it was Owls Do Cry, her first full-length novel, published in 1957, that established her literary career. The famed cover illustration by Dennis Beytagh on this work has become a classic.]]> Janet Frame]]> Book covers]]> Katherine Mansfield was part of a New Zealand Profiles series on prominent New Zealanders.]]> Heather Curnow]]> Book covers]]> Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) is perhaps New Zealand’s most famous export, a modernist poet and short story writer who made her name in Europe with works such as Je ne parle pas francais, Bliss and Other Short Stories, and The Garden Party. Extrapulmonary tuberculosis claimed her life at the early age of 34. Her husband, John Middleton Murray, was quick to forge his own version of Mansfield. Shortly after she died, he culled text from 53 notebooks and masses of unbound papers, she left behind, to form Poems (1923). ‘To L.H.B.’ was a poem written about her brother, Leslie Heron Beauchamp, who died on 6 October 1915, when a grenade malfunctioned while he was instructing troops.]]> Katherine Mansfield]]> Books]]> 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]]> Robin Hyde's work as a journalist and columnist at the Dominion, the Christchurch Sun, and Mirror led her to write about her experiences. Journalese appeared in 1934. In a period of four years, after much personal suffering, and travel, she wrote five novels: Passport to Hell (1936), Check To Your King (1936), Wednesday’s Children (1937), Nor the Years Condemn (1938), and The Godwits Fly (1938). The reputation of this very modern writer continues to rise.]]> Robin Hyde]]> 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]]> 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]]> 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]]> Sarah M. Smith is the Book Arts Printer at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Minutes was printed in 2012, while she was at an artist’s residency at Asheville Bookworks in Asheville, North Carolina. It is a book about meetings, people and their behavior before, during, and after such occasions. Animal behavior, animal mimicry, flocking patterns and other disparate images and texts form the content. Minutes not only shows off Smith’s excellent skill as a printer and artist, but also her great sense of humour. In 2016, Smith was Printer in Residence at Otakou Press, University of Otago.]]> Sarah M. Smith]]> Book covers]]> 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]]> 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]]> 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]]> 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]]> Joan of Arc, or the Maid of Orléans (1412-31) was inspired by ‘visions’, and petitioned King Charles VII to go into battle for France against the English in the Hundred Years War. In early May of 1429, Joan, still only a teenager, dressed in armour and atop her horse, accompanied the French troops in a successful siege to liberate Orléans. She was instrumental in turning France’s fortune in the war. Joan was a rebel in the sense that she challenged societal convention, fought for what she believed in, and never gave up. She became a hero for the French. However, the English saw Joan as a cross-dressing witch, and after capturing her in 1430, they quickly convicted her and burnt her at the stake. Here is the first volume of Robert Southey’s epic poem on the legendary Joan.]]> Robert Southey]]> 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]]> 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]]> 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]]> 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]]> Trota of Salerno, Italy, was an 11th century medical practitioner. Tolerated as a female in the medical world, Trota wrote a treatise focussed on women’s health, specifically for a female audience. Over time, the treatise was copied, translated, and added to, and the extant manuscripts have become known as the ‘Trotula texts’. In the preface of some variations, the translator encourages literate women to read the text to illiterate women, so the knowledge becomes widespread. This book contains an ‘English Trotula’ (Sloane Manuscript 2463), translated from Middle English, and like all Trotula, it covers all kinds of medical conditions specific to women. Here is one of the sixteen explanations, with illustration, on ‘unnatural childbirth’.]]> [Trotula]. Translated by Beryl Rowland]]> Books]]> Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) had to fight was against her family. She was born rich and privileged, and at the time, nursing was a profession for low class women. Nightingale’s family were determined to stop her, but luckily they were unable to. Her life-long achievements are too many to list here, but ‘in a nutshell’: Nightingale made nursing a recognised profession; she established the first training school for nurses; she used statistics to highlight deficiencies in healthcare and sanitation; she wrote over 200 books and articles; and she was instrumental in the reform of hospital best practice. Nightingale’s influences on healthcare continue to be felt today. This is Notes on Nursing, her most famous and influential book.]]> Florence Nightingale]]> 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]]> Frances Hodgkins (1869-1947) left New Zealand in 1900, age 31 and spent time in London, Manchester, Paris, and Morocco, eking out a living painting, and teaching. She returned briefly to New Zealand in 1912 as ‘the girl from down under who conquered Paris’. Although her European reputation grew, life as an artist was always hard, and support from the Calico Printers Association, the London Group, the Seven and Five Society, and individuals such as Arthur Howell, enabled her to continue. Hodgkins remained fiercely independent, determined, and by necessity, obstinate. She is regarded as one of New Zealand’s foremost artists. This catalogue of a ‘Memorial Exhibition’ of her works shown at the Tate Gallery, London, is from the Brasch Collection.]]> The Arts Council]]> Catalogues]]>