Githa Sowerby

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Standard Name: Sowerby, Githa
Birth Name: Katherine Githa Sowerby
Married Name: Katherine Githa Kendall
Githa Sowerby's first full-length play, Rutherford and Son, was received in 1912 as a work of major importance. After this initial success, however, she produced only a handful of plays, only one more of which reached print. Her plays deftly exploit realist techniques to address social and economic problems, often from a feminist perspective. She began her writing career with a number of books for children (illustrated by her sister Millicent) , as well as some plays for young audiences. She also supplied the lyrics for a few songs composed by F. Paolo Tosti .
Photograph of a round blue plaque dedicated to Githa Sowerby by Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council, set in a grey stone wall. The council's name appears at the top, followed by: Katherine Githa Sowerby (1876-1970). Playwright, poet, children's author and member of the noted Sowerby glass family. In her early years she lived near here at Ravenshill." At the bottom the plaque is dated 2009.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Baker
Set in the back rooms of a drapery shop, the play centres on the economic struggles of a poor middle-class family trying to divest themselves of their failing business. Thomas Scott, a benign, old-fashioned Nonconformist...
Performance of text Michelene Wandor
MW has adapted two German plays for English productions: Heinrich von Kleist 's Penthesilea, about the Amazons (1977), and Ernst Toller 's The Blind Goddess (1981). She also adapted Githa Sowerby 's Rutherford and...
Author summary Henrik Ibsen
The plays of Henrik Ibsen , nineteenth-century Norwegian poet and dramatist, were both controversial and enormously influential in Britain; their use of realist techniques to address contemporary social problems helped to bring about a revolution...

Timeline

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Texts

Sowerby, Githa. Before Breakfast. Samuel French, 1913.
Sowerby, Githa, and Millicent Sowerby. Childhood. Chatto and Windus, 1907.
Sowerby, Githa, and Millicent Sowerby. Little Plays for Little People. Henry Frowde, and Hodder and Stoughton, 1910.
Sowerby, Githa, and Millicent Sowerby. Little Stories for Little People. Henry Frowde, and Hodder and Stoughton, 1910.
Sowerby, Githa. Rutherford and Son. Sidgwick and Jackson, 1912.
Sowerby, Githa. “Rutherford and Son”. New Woman Plays, edited by Linda Fitzsimmons and Viv Gardner, Methuen, 1991, pp. 133-89.
Sowerby, Githa, and Millicent Sowerby. The Bumbletoes. Chatto and Windus, 1907.
Sowerby, Githa et al. The Gay Book. Artists and Writers Guild, 1935.
Sowerby, Githa et al. The Glad Book. Artists and Writers Guild, 1935.
Sowerby, Githa, and Millicent Sowerby. The Wise Book. J. M. Dent; E. P. Dutton, 1906.