Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Annie Besant
-
Standard Name: Besant, Annie
Birth Name: Annie Wood
Married Name: Annie Besant
Pseudonym: Ajax
Used Form: the wife of a beneficed clergyman
AB
is known primarily for two streams of non-fiction writing, one concerning birth control and the other the Theosophist movement. However, this omits much of the remarkable output whose topics ranged from women's rights and religion to politics and science; only a small selection from over one hundred pamphlets, lectures, and essays can be discussed here.
Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press.
She often pursued various topics simultaneously. For example, during 1878 and 1879 while she was trying to regain custody of her children, she was also organising her writings on the French Revolution; translating a book from French; keeping up with her weekly journalism; producing pamphlets on atheism, republicanism, India and Ireland; sitting on committees; and, of course, continuing to lecture.
Dinnage, Rosemary. Annie Besant. Penguin.
48-9
As well as such often controversial writings, AB
published short fiction.
On 23 April 1892 IOF
contributed an article entitled Women and the Labour Party to a special series for the Leeds Times on Social and Political Questions by Representative English Women. Other notable contributors...
Cultural formation
Mary Gawthorpe
MG
begins her autobiography with her local identity: I was Yorkshire born. My forebears, grandparents maternal and paternal, were all born in Yorkshire, in Leeds so far as I know.
Gawthorpe, Mary. Up Hill to Holloway. Traversity Press.
7
Born English therefore, she...
Family and Intimate relationships
Katharine Bruce Glasier
KBG
was devastated by her husband's death, but later she began to experience visions of his continuing presence (as she did of her son's presence after he too died).
Kelly, Gary, and Edd Applegate, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 190. Gale Research.
She visited Annie Besant
in Madras, where she attended a Theosophist
convention and visited the Central Hindu College
, founded by Besant. In July 1907 she observed the fiftieth anniversary of the Indian Mutiny...
Occupation
Jean Ingelow
She always concerned herself with the plight of the poor and she frequently paid for and served what she called copyright dinners for elderly paupers in Holland Street, Kensington. (She paid for them out...
She began writing it on a sunny August morning at Farnham, after reading in the Daily News of how Bradlaugh
, the well-known radical, in prison for refusing to take the parliamentary oath on...
Family and Intimate relationships
Florence Marryat
FM
's aunt Ellen Marryat
was a significant influence on the education of Annie Woods (later Annie Besant
).
Publishing
Charlotte Mew
CM
published another short story, The Smile, in Annie Besant
's journal The Theosophist.
Warner, Val. “New Light on Charlotte Mew”. PN Review, Vol.
24
, No. 1, pp. 43-7.
45
Mew, Charlotte. “Introduction”. Collected Poems and Prose, edited by Val Warner, Carcanet and Virago, p. ix - xxii.
HM
, travelling this time with Annie Besant
, visited Chicago to attend the Parliament of Religions, at which she addressed the Theosophical congress.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Travel
Henrietta Müller
HM
landed for a second time on the mainland of India, where, along with Besant
, she spoke before crowds of people. They had begun their lecture tour in Ceylon.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Nethercot, Arthur H. The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant. University of Chicago Press.
16
Travel
Henrietta Müller
She had planned to accompany Annie Besant
, but at the last minute Besant cancelled and Müller went alone.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Textual Production
Henrietta Müller
The discussion on preventative checks had begun in January 1886 with Annie Besant
's talk on The State and Sexual Relations, which advocated the use of contraceptives. This initiated a storm of debate among members.
Bland, Lucy. Banishing the Beast: Sexuality and the Early Feminists. New Press.
19
Timeline
February 1913: The last issue of The Link: The Organ of...
Building item
February 1913
The last issue of The Link: The Organ of the Women's Socialist Movement was published in London.
2 July 1914: The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited...
Building item
2 July 1914
The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited by Wyndham Lewis
, formally announced the arrival of Vorticism, an avant-garde movement in art.
Texts
Besant, Annie. “White Slavery in London”. The Link.
Besant, Annie. Why I am a Socialist. A. Besant and C. Bradlaugh, 1886.
Besant, Annie. Why I Became a Theosophist. Freethought Publishing, 1889.
