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Margaret Atwood

Well before the end of the twentieth century MA had become one of Canada's leading writers in multiple genres. She now writes for a global audience who read her more than forty novels , poetry,short...
Margaret Atwood Black-and-white photo of Margaret Atwood standing at a podium and speaking into a microphone, gesturing with her hands, 5 April 1973.

Charlotte Maria Tucker

Charlotte Maria Tucker was a phenomenally prolific and popular novelist, writer of tracts and short stories, and poet for children and adults. Most of her works have a religious and didactic intent. She is reported...
Charlotte Maria Tucker Black and white photograph of Charlotte Maria Tucker by William Notman, Toronto, 1875. She sits in an upholstered chair beside a small table draped with a tablecloth and bearing a book and an ornate Greek-motif jar (probably photographer's props). She wears a long, dark, broad-skirted dress and a simple dark buttoned jacket with white lace collar apparently joined to white lace around a dark cap. Her hair is arranged to shoulder length.

1896: Theodor Herzl published, both in German and...

Writer or writing item

1896

Theodor Herzl published, both in German and English, his foundational Zionist text The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question.
Ashton, Rosemary. George Eliot: A Life. Hamish Hamilton, 1996.
348

1567: Eleanor Pead was granted by the Archbishop...

Building and people item

1567

Eleanor Pead was granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury the earliest surviving licence to practise midwifery.
Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England. Methuen, 1985.
507

1870: Artist Richard Doyle published, with a poem...

Writer or writing item

1870

Artist Richard Doyle published, with a poem by William Allingham , a collection of exquisitely detailed and coloured plates called In Fairyland: A Series of Pictures from the Elf-World.
Doyle, Richard, and William Allingham. In Fairyland: A Series of Pictures from the Elf-World. Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1870.
prelims

1785: Dr George Gregory (friend of Elizabeth Hamilton)...

Building and people item

1785

Dr George Gregory (friend of Elizabeth Hamilton ) published with Joseph JohnsonEssays Historical and Moral, which expresses feminist and reforming sentiments.
Robinson, Shareen. Revolutionary Novels. University of New South Wales, 2000.
145

31 May 1915: German forces made the first Zeppelin air-raid...

National or international item

31 May 1915

German forces made the first Zeppelin air-raid on London.
Gibbs-Smith, Charles Harvard. Aviation: An Historical Survey from its Origins to the end of World War II. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1970.
247
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
351
Hamnett, Nina. Laughing Torso. Ray Long & Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1932.
86-7

1959: The first Xerox 914 photocopier appeared...

Building and people item

1959

The first Xerox 914 photocopier appeared on the US market.
Harris, Melvin. ITN Book of Firsts. Michael O’Mara Books, 1994.
217
Panati, Charles. Panati’s Browser’s Book of Beginnings. Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
333

18 August 1846: The Gauge Act standardized the width of British...

National or international item

18 August 1846

The Gauge Act standardized the width of British rail lines at four feet eight and a half inches.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
95-6
Ellis, Hamilton. British Railway History: An Outline from the Accession of William IV to the Nationalisation of Railways 1830-1876. George Allen and Unwin, 1954.
107

12 June 1819: Charles Kingsley, novelist, was born at Holne...

Writer or writing item

12 June 1819

Charles Kingsley , novelist, was born at Holne Vicarage, Holne, Devon.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
32

December 2001: Women writers for the first time outnumbered...

Women writers item

December 2001

Women writers for the first time outnumbered men in the Guardian newspaper's annual listing of the fastest-selling paperbacks in Britain.
Gibbons, Fiachra. “Women lead the way in ’hottest’ books list”. The Guardian, 29 Dec. 2001, p. 5.
5

1 January 1969: Sunderland Technical College (founded in...

Building and people item

1 January 1969

SunderlandTechnical College (founded in 1908 with seventy students, male and female) became Sunderland Polytechnic . In 1992 it was granted university status.
“Our History”. University of Sunderland.

Charlotte Dempster

In a writing career that lasted almost thirty years of the later nineteenth century, CD published six novels, numerous essays (some of which she re-issued in a collection), a travel-narrative, a cookbook, and a devotional...

24 April 1889: The Garrick Theatre opened in Charing Cross...

Building and people item

24 April 1889

The Garrick Theatre opened in Charing Cross Road, London.
Mander, Raymond, and Joe Mitchenson. The Theatres of London. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1963.
85

31 January 1974: The three Marias, Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria...

Writer or writing item

31 January 1974

The three Marias, Maria Isabel Barreno , Maria Teresa Horta , and Maria Velha da Costa , were charged in a Lisbon court for publishing in 1972 a book deemed to be pornographic: an...

15 March 1936: Frederic Warburg bought Martin Secker's bankrupt...

Writer or writing item

15 March 1936

Frederic Warburg bought Martin Secker 's bankrupt publishing house and founded Martin Secker and Warburg Limited ; Secker remained in charge of production until 1938.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 112. Gale Research, 1991.
293
Myers, Robin. The British Book Trade, from Caxton to the Present Day. Andre Deutsch in association with the National Book League, 1973.
348

1728: Ephraim Chambers attempted in his Cyclopaedia...

Writer or writing item

1728

Ephraim Chambers attempted in his Cyclopaedia to offer a digest of all existing modern knowledge.
Brewer, John. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997.
190
London Magazine. C. Ackers.
(November 1738): 582
Stavisky, Aaron. “Review of Pat Rogers, The Samuel Johnson DictionaryThe Age of Johnson, edited by Paul J. Korshin, Vol.
10
, AMS Press, 1999, pp. 302-28.
302
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

1909: Following the passage of the Old Age Pensions...

Building and people item

1909

Following the passage of the Old Age Pensions Act the previous year in Britain, the first payments were made of Old Age Pensions, at five shillings a week, to those over the age of seventy.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
342

Elizabeth Nihell

EN is a mid-eighteenth-century medical writer, a forceful, though a late voice in the feminist struggle to keep childbirth in female hands.
Elizabeth Nihell Print of an elderly Elizabeth Nihell, published the year she would have turned one hundred. She wears a cap covering her whole head and a heavy shawl. The inscription below reads "Elizabeth Nihel, Sage Femme", and gives her birth date. "Sage femme" is French for midwife: the image comes from "Biographie des Sages femmes célèbrées", 1833.

Elizabeth Elstob

EE is noteworthy as the first female scholar in the newly opening field of the Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) language. She was also a translator, a biographer, and a promoter of learning for women and...
Elizabeth Elstob Line engraving with portrait of Elizabeth Elstob inside an initial letter G, by Simon Gribelin, from "An English-Saxon Homily on the Birth-day of St. Gregory", 1709, which she translated from Old English. She looks towards the viewer, slightly angled to her left with her head turned to her right. She wears a dress with a low neckline, and her hair is styled with curls framing her forehead and face, while the rest hangs behind her shoulders.

1904: The Infants' Health Society was formed in...

Building and people item

1904

The Infants' Health Society was formed in England.
Weeks, Jeffrey. Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800. Longman, 1981.
127

1881: The weekly Lady's Pictorial magazine began...

Writer or writing item

1881

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

7 June 1945: Peter Grimes, Benjamin Britten's opera based...

Building and people item

7 June 1945

Peter Grimes, Benjamin Britten 's opera based on a poem by George Crabbe , premiered at Sadler's Wells Theatre , London.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
396
Nettel, Reginald. The Orchestra in England: A Social History. Jonathan Cape, 1956.
248
Harewood, George Henry Hubert Lascelles, Earl of, editor. Kobbé’s Complete Opera Book. 10th ed., Bodley Head, 1987.
1160-1

30 September 1886: Sigmund Freud married Martha Bernays....

Building and people item

30 September 1886

Sigmund Freud married Martha Bernays .
Hergenhahn, Baldwin Ross. An Introduction to the History of Psychology. 2nd ed., Wadsworth Publishing, 1992, http://HSS.
461

13 January 1912: The last issue of Black and White; a weekly...

Writer or writing item

13 January 1912

The last issue of Black and White; a weekly illustrated record and review was published.
North, John S., editor. The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals: 1800-1900. http://www.victorianperiodicals.com/series2/defaultLoggedIn.asp.