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Jane Barker

JB , who wrote during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, shows remarkable daring and originality both as a poet and as a writer of prose fiction. Critical attention to her as a proto-feminist...
Jane Barker Alleged portrait of Jane Barker: a fleuron in "The Entertaining Novels of Mrs. Jane Barker of Wilsthorp in Northamptonshire", published by Edmund Curll, third (posthumous) edition, 1736. In an oval frame, "Barker" faces the viewer in a low-necked, lace-edged gown, with hair in curls on her head and down her neck.

Mary Bryan

MB was a remarkable and unusual Romantic poet, though her output is so slim. The same emotionalism of style informs her surviving letters, though it is a less successful element in prose. Her last work...

1957: The Baptist Church allowed women pastors...

Building and people item

1957

The Baptist Church allowed women pastors to use the title of minister.
Kaye, Elaine. “A Turning-point in the Ministry of Women: The Ordination of the First Woman to the Christian Ministry in England in September 1917”. Women in the Church, edited by William J. Sheils and Diana Wood, Basil Blackwell, 1990, pp. 505-12.
511

March 1903: The Publishers Association established an...

Writer or writing item

March 1903

The Publishers Association established an Educational Books Committee to look into the implications of the 1902 Education Act on educational book-publishing.
Kingsford, Reginald John Lethbridge. The Publisher’s Association, 1896-1946. Cambridge University Press, 1970.
21

Naomi Royde-Smith

NRS 'a most important literary work included serving as midwife to the writings of others. She also published prodigiously, from early in the twentieth century: nearly forty novels, besides short stories, anthologies and compilations, biographies...

1883: Charles Henry Olive Daniel's Daniel Press...

Writer or writing item

1883

Charles Henry Olive Daniel 's Daniel Press offered its first book for sale.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 106. Gale Research, 1991.
106: 123-4

1844-45: Eugène Sue published Le Juif errant....

Writer or writing item

1844-45

Eugène Sue published Le Juif errant.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.

Freya Stark

Famous as a twentieth-century explorer and traveller, FS was also a prominent travel-writer, essayist, autobiographer, letter-writer, geographic historian, photo journalist, and cartographer. Reprints of Stark's texts, along with recent biographies by Molly Izzard (1993) and...
Freya Stark Photograph of a head-and-shoulders painting of Freya Stark by Herbert Arnould Olivier, 1923. She sits in front of a wooden cabinet, with many drawers and an inset mirror, her arm resting on its shelf. She is wearing a simple black tunic over a sheer white blouse, and she has jaw-length brown hair tied with a black ribbon. National Portrait Gallery.

1885: Women were granted the right to vote in New...

National or international item

1885

Women were granted the right to vote in New Zealand local elections; in 1893, New Zealand became the first country to grant women the vote in national elections.
Grimshaw, Patricia. Women’s Suffrage in New Zealand. Auckland University Press, 1972.
11-12
Blackburn, Helen. Women’s Suffrage. Williams and Norgate, 1902.
203

Isa Blagden

IB is the author of five fairly sentimental yet often outspokenly feminist novels, a small volume of poetry, and a number of essays and short stories—almost all of which were published in London during the...
Isa Blagden Black and white photograph of Isa Blagden, seated with a book in her lap. She wears a dress with wide skirt, puff sleeves, a high collar, a pattern of stitched swirls going up the torso, and a tightly laced waist covering like a corset. Her dark hair is pinned at the back of her head.

Dorothy Bussy

As a writer DB is best known for Olivia, her immensely successful, anonymous or rather pseudonymous, autobiographical novel, published in 1949, about a young girl's development at a French boarding school in the later...
Dorothy Bussy Black and white photo of Dorothy Bussy outside a house. She is wearing loose-fitting trousers and a loose lace-patterned shirt belted at the waist. She has small wire-rimmed spectacles, a simple black ribbon around her neck, and short hair with a fringe. She has her head slightly on one side, an open book tucked under her arm, and a slight, quizzical smile.

9 April 1887: Following the appeal judgment which ordered...

Women writers item

9 April 1887

Following the appeal judgment which ordered her to cohabit with her husband, Dadaji Bhikaji , a letter by Rukhmabai appeared in the LondonTimes.
Burton, Antoinette. “Conjugality on Trial: the Rukhmabai Case and the Debate on Indian Child-Marriage in Late-Victorian Britain”. Disorder in the Court: Trials and Sexual Conflict at the Turn of the Century, edited by George Robb and Nancy Erber, New York University Press, 1999, pp. 33-56.
44-8, 50

1849: Socialist Robert Owen published The Revolution...

Writer or writing item

1849

Socialist Robert Owen published The Revolution in Mind and Practice of the Human Race.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
727

1920: The Cloister Press was founded by C. W. Hobson...

Writer or writing item

1920

The Cloister Press was founded by C. W. Hobson at Heaton Mersey, near Manchester.
Clair, Colin. A Chronology of Printing. Cassell, 1969.
175
Myers, Robin. The British Book Trade, from Caxton to the Present Day. Andre Deutsch in association with the National Book League, 1973.
281

Spring 1772-Spring 1773: The passage through parliament of the Toleration...

Building and people item

Spring 1772-Spring 1773

The passage through parliament of the Toleration Bill gave opportunities to Edmund Burke to argue for religious toleration—in the belief that this would actually strengthen the Church of England .
De Bruyn, Frans. “Anti-Semitism, Millenarianism, and Radical Dissent in Edmund Burkes Reflections on the Revolution in FranceEighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
34
, No. 4, 1 June 2001–2026, pp. 577-00.
594 and nn51-53

1875: The weekly and monthly magazine Myra's Journal...

Writer or writing item

1875

The weekly and monthly magazine Myra's Journal of Dress and Fashion began publication.
Beetham, Margaret. A Magazine of Her Own?: Domesticity and Desire in the Woman’s Magazine, 1800-1914. Routledge, 1996.
217

28 March 1589: A child named Sarah Glascock died after six...

Building and people item

28 March 1589

A child named Sarah Glascock died after six weeks' languishing; despite a persuasive defence, Joan Prentice was found guilty of bewitching her and sentenced to hang.
Purkiss, Diane. The Witch in History: early modern and twentieth-century representations. Routledge, 1996.
168-9, 176n91

October 1842: The Schools of Design in South Kensington...

Building and people item

October 1842

The Schools of Design in South Kensington established a Female School .
Nunn, Pamela Gerrish. Victorian Women Artists. Women’s Press, 1987.
48-9
Callen, Anthea. Women in the Arts and Crafts Movement 1870-1914. Astragal Books, 1980.
27-8

10 December 2004: Linda B. Buck and Richard Axel, both based...

National or international item

10 December 2004

Linda B. Buck and Richard Axel , both based in the USA, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system.
The Nobel Foundation. Nobel E-Museum.

After February 1869: Two years after its launch, the American...

National or international item

After February 1869

Two years after its launch, the American Equal Rights Association voted to support the US Congress 's proposed fifteenth amendment (which enabled male suffrage for Black people without waiting for white women to attain the vote).
Dow, Bonnie J. “How the Battle of Memory Was Won”. Women’s Review of Books, Vol.
31
, No. 5, Sept.–Oct. 2014, pp. 3-4.
3

William Congreve

By May 1849: With the help of Swiss mercenaries, Ferdinand...

National or international item

By May 1849

With the help of Swiss mercenaries, Ferdinand II reconquered Sicily and reinforced his rule in Naples.
Cowie, Leonard W., and Leonard Woolfson. Years of Nationalism: European History 1815-1890. Edward Arnold, 1985.
189

By 1630: Scottish book-collector, letter-writer, and...

Building and people item

By 1630

Scottish book-collector, letter-writer, and possibly poet Lilias Grant had a catalogue compiled of her library of twenty-eight mostly pious books, including The Mothers Blessing by Dorothy Leigh (first published in 1616).
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

Early November 2012: A merger was proposed between the publishers...

Writer or writing item

Early November 2012

A merger was proposed between the publishers Penguin and Random House , that would create a mega-company with worldwide revenues of 4.1 billion dollars US.
Sabbagh, Dan. “Amazon fears underlie books merger”. Guardian Weekly, 2 Nov. 2012, p. 17.

2 July 1912: King George V was present at the first Royal...

Building and people item

2 July 1912

King George V was present at the first Royal Command Variety Performance at the Palace Theatre in London.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
347