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March 1883: The conservative National Review began publication,...

Writer or writing item

March 1883

The conservative National Review began publication, to mediocre reviews.
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press, 1966–1989, 5 vols.
2: 529-31, 536

10 December 1905: Bertha von Suttner was awarded the Nobel...

National or international item

10 December 1905

Bertha von Suttner was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her vocal critique of armament programmes and militarism in the anti-war novel Lay down your Arms.
Schlessinger, Bernard S., and June H. Schlessinger. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-1995. 3rd ed., Oryx Press, 1996.
Nobel Prize in Literature. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/.

Pearl S. Buck

PSB , first US woman to win the Nobel prize in literature, was raised in a missionary family on illicit reading of novels from Victorian England and from a Chinese tradition of melodramatic, popular tales...
Pearl S. Buck Black and white photograph of Pearl S. Buck, shown from the shoulders up. She is wearing a light dress and a dark cardigan, with her wavy hair pulled loosely back.

1898: The Guild of Women Binders held its first...

Writer or writing item

1898

The Guild of Women Binders held its first exhibition in London.
Gentry, Helen, and David Greenhood. Chronology of Books and Printing. Rev. ed., Macmillan, 1936.
122

1985: The screenplay for The Assam Garden, directed...

Women writers item

1985

The screenplay for The Assam Garden, directed by Mary McMurray , was written by Elisabeth Bond .
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.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). http://www.imdb.com.

Leonora Carrington

Though LC is best known for her visual art, she produced ample fiction, plays, and life writing that engage with aesthetic and political movements of her time, particularly surrealism and feminism. Her writing (published between...

5 August 1772: Polish territory was carved up between Austria,...

National or international item

5 August 1772

Polish territory was carved up between Austria, Russia, and Prussia in an event known as the Partition of Poland (or later, after Polish territory was further reduced in January 1793 and October 1795, as the...

Sylvia Townsend Warner

STW once commented that her career in writing was an accidental one, as her initial career was in musicology. However, she was very prolific for more than fifty years of the twentieth century over a...

1856: Fredrika Bremer's feminist novel Hertha stressed...

Writer or writing item

1856

Fredrika Bremer 's feminist novel Hertha stressed the need for women's independence; it appeared in an English translation by Mary Howitt the same year.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
The Fredrika Bremer Association. http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20080201023636/http://www.fredrikabremer.se/site/english.

: Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia became the...

National or international item

1678-06-25

Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to be awarded an academic degree (although Dorotea Bocchi had been appointed to an academic chair almost three hundred years before this).
Stevenson, Angus, and Christine A. Lindberg, editors. “Cornaro Piscopia, Elena Lucrezia”. New Oxford American Dictionary, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2015.
Maschietto, Francesco Ludovico. Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646-1684). Translator Vairo, Jan, Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2007.
74

24 April 1932: Five hundred people, mostly male industrial...

Building and people item

24 April 1932

Five hundred people, mostly male industrial workers, set out on what became known as the Kinder Scout trespass, claiming the public right to roam on privately-owned open land.
Hattersley, Roy. “The peak of protest”. Guardian Unlimited, 24 Apr. 2007.

September 1691: Thomas Betterton changed his status at the...

Building and people item

September 1691

Thomas Betterton changed his status at the United Company of actors from sharer to salaried performer, likely because of the instability of the company's finances.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
1: 397

November-December 1906: Mediation in the Book WarRSC: link to other...

Writer or writing item

November-December 1906

Mediation in the Book War (of the Times Book Club against the Net Book Agreement) was attempted unsuccessfully by an unofficial committee composed of several eminent authors.
Kingsford, Reginald John Lethbridge. The Publisher’s Association, 1896-1946. Cambridge University Press, 1970.
31-2

13 December 1800: William Godwin's five-act verse tragedy Antonio...

Writer or writing item

13 December 1800

William Godwin 's five-act verse tragedy Antonio was performed for the first and last time at Drury Lane . It was rejected by the audience, not with hissing but with coughing.
Burton, Sarah. A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb. Viking, 2003.
184

1909: Irene Clyde published her feminist utopian...

Women writers item

1909

Irene Clyde published her feminist utopian novel Beatrice the Sixteenth.
Albinski, Nan Bowman. Women’s Utopias in British and American Fiction. Routledge, 1988.
21-2 and n12

Anne Bradstreet

AB , born and brought up in seventeenth-century England, is known as the earliest poet of North America. She was a skilled and ambitious practitioner of verse history and scholarly adaptation from classical authors...
Anne Bradstreet Frontispiece of "An Account of Anne Bradstreet The Puritan Poetess, and Kindred Topics", ed. Luther Caldwell (Boston, 1898). Bradstreet is seen sitting at a desk, apparently paused in the act of writing for inspiration from above. She wears a black dress with a coif, big-collared shift, cuffs, and apron all in white.

December 1666: Wenceslaus Hollar published a map of London...

Building and people item

December 1666

Wenceslaus Hollar published a map of London to show how it had changed since the Great Fire.
In the text the date is given wrongly as 1665, but it is clear on the print.
Copeland, Edward. “Defoe and the London Wall: Mapped Perspectives”. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol.
10
, No. 4, July 1998, pp. 407-28.
416 and fig. 4

1883: J. S. Burdon Sanderson's election as Professor...

Building and people item

1883

J. S. Burdon Sanderson 's election as Professor of Physiology at Oxford prompted the most publicized nineteenth-century debate between anti-vivisectionists and the proponents of vivisection as an educational tool for studying medicine.
French, Richard D. Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society. Princeton University Press, 1975.
275

March 1958: Trinidadian-born activist Claudia Jones launched,...

Writer or writing item

March 1958

Trinidadian-born activist Claudia Jones launched, on a shoe-string, the West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News, which kept publishing in London until May 1965, only two issues after her death.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

1792: Thomas Beddoes published Alexander's Expedition;...

Building and people item

1792

Thomas Beddoes published Alexander's Expedition; it was set up by a woman compositor, whose work he praised in an advertisement.
Goldman, Harold. Emma Paterson: She Led Woman into a Man’s World. Lawrence and Wishart, 1974.
79

13 April 1993: Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, a play whose action...

Writer or writing item

13 April 1993

Tom Stoppard 's Arcadia, a play whose action is divided between the early nineteenth century and the present day, opened (after previews) at the National Theatre in London.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
64610 (5 April 1993): 28

Ann Taylor Gilbert

ATG , her next sister and two brothers, wrote and published seventy-three books. The first and most famous title appeared in 1804-5. Most of these works were collaboratively authored in various combinations. They were mainly...
Ann Taylor Gilbert Black and white illustration from pastel of Ann Taylor Gilbert by her son Josiah Gilbert, which he used in editing her Autobiography in 1874. She is sitting in a chair upholstered in patterned material. She is wearing a white bonnet tied in a bow under her chin, circular glasses, and a black dress. She is sitting with her head slightly inclined, with her hands together and her fingers laced.

April 1821: William Hazlitt published the first volume...

Writer or writing item

April 1821

William Hazlitt published the first volume of Table Talk, a collection of essays.
Quarterly Review. J. Murray.
25: 275
Keynes, Geoffrey, Sir. Bibliography of William Hazlitt. Second Edition, St. Paul’s Bibliographies, 1981.
60-1

8 June 1847: A Factory Act, also known as The Ten Hours...

Building and people item

8 June 1847

A Factory Act, also known as The Ten Hours Act, restricted the length of British women's and teenagers' working day in textile factories to ten hours.
Cook, Chris, and John, 1946 - Stevenson. The Longman Handbook of Modern British History, 1714-1995. 3rd ed., Longman, 1996.
164-5
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
269
Schwarzkopf, Jutta. Women in the Chartist Movement. St Martin’s Press, 1991.
179
Zlotnick, Susan. Women, Writing, and the Industrial Revolution. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
209-10
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Sweet, Matthew. Inventing the Victorians. St Martin’s Press, 2001.
3

Lady Anne Clifford

LAC 's known writings (clustered in two periods: her youth in the early seventeenth century and her old age after the Restoration) consist of diaries, yearly summaries or chronicles, and an autobiography which relates...
Lady Anne Clifford Portrait of Lady Anne Clifford by William Larkin. She faces forward, sumptuously dressed in a green, heavily embroidered jacket over a white, lace-edged bodice, a small ruff of starched lace, and drop pearl earrings. Her thick hair is brushed back and adorned with a coronet. National Portrait Gallery.