Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sylvia Pankhurst
-
Standard Name: Pankhurst, Sylvia
Birth Name: Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst
SP
, socialist feminist, was a prodigiously energetic writer, battling in print for most of the first half of the twentieth century for causes like the struggle for women's emancipation, the improvement of work and maternity conditions for poor women, and later for Ethiopian independence, in scores of letters, pamphlets, articles, and non-fiction monographs. She also produced a few poems, and translated poetry by others.
While researching her suffrage play, Votes for Women!, ER
became an active member of the suffrage movement. In July 1906 she began attending meetings of the Women's Social and Political Union
, and her...
politics
Elizabeth Robins
Earlier that year ER
had publicly defended militant tactics, but she was troubled by the PankhurstsChristabel PankhurstSylvia Pankhurst
' move toward a more radical militancy.
Gates, Joanne E. Elizabeth Robins, 1862-1952. University of Alabama Press.
205-9, 211-12
She nevertheless continued to support women's issues. In the early...
Sylvia Pankhurst
enrolled her son as a day-boy at Beacon Hill, and lived nearby while writing The Suffragette Movement; Beatrice
and Sidney Webb
, and G. B. Shaw
also visited. The school hosted annual...
politics
Olive Schreiner
OS
did not support the use of violence. As a pacifist, she disapproved of Emmeline Pankhurst
's militant feminism. (She was a personal friend, however, of Sylvia Pankhurst
.) She supported Gandhi
's satyagraha movement...
Occupation
Evelyn Sharp
ES
was apparently an unusually effective public speaker. Henry Nevinson
, her long-time lover and eventual husband, said she was driven to speech by a white-hot indignation that blazed in her words rather than in...
Friends, Associates
George Bernard Shaw
He was an important figure in the lives and careers of almost innumerable women writers: a good friend of Annie Besant
, Sylvia Pankhurst
, Elizabeth Robins
, and Christopher St John
, a romantic...
politics
Ethel Sidgwick
The Congress, held from 28 April to 1 May, attracted 1,200 women from twelve countries, both warring and neutral, to discuss means of achieving peace. Others meeting with the delegates on the subsequent peace tour...
Here MS
writes grippingly of her own life, and illuminatingly about myriad subjects of public or cultural interest: the lives, customs, and deaths of newspapers, the conspiracy of silence about sex which had not dissipated...
Reception
Ray Strachey
The book received scant but positive critical notice. The Bookman called it a work of unparalleled interest, written with balanced judgement
The Bookman. Hodder and Stoughton.
(1928 Christmas Supplement): 61
and The London Mercury praised RS
as an admirable historian...
Nonetheless, several of her plays have never (in 2008) been staged. One is Wild Diamonds, set in South Africa and seen through the eyes of Olive Schreiner
and Cecil Rhodes, which was commissioned...
politics
Virginia Woolf
On 10 May Germany had invaded Holland and Belgium. In the event of an invasion of England, they could indeed expect a terrible personal fate, on account of their anti-war politics, Leonard's anti-war career and...
