Charles Bradlaugh

Standard Name: Bradlaugh, Charles

Connections

Connections Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Occupation Annie Besant
Under Charles Bradlaugh 's influence, AB began lecturing and writing for the National Secular Society .
Taylor, Anne. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford University Press.
71-3
politics Annie Besant
AB became secretary of the Malthusian League (a new version of Bradlaugh 's 1860s league), which sought legal reform to end prosecution for public discussion of population issues and birth control.
Taylor, Anne. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford University Press.
121
Textual Production Annie Besant
With Charles Bradlaugh , AB issued their reprint of a notorious manual on birth control, Charles Knowlton 's Fruits of Philosophy, 1832, with a publisher's preface by themselves.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Taylor, Anne. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford University Press.
370
Reception Annie Besant
AB and Charles Bradlaugh were convicted of obscenity and sentenced, initially, to six months in prison for reprinting, as Fruits of Philosophy, a pamphlet on contraception dating from 1832.
Taylor, Anne. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford University Press.
102, 119
Friends, Associates Annie Besant
AB met Charles Bradlaugh in 1874, the year after forming her friendships with Thomas Scott and Charles Voysey . Bradlaugh was a lawyer, a militant atheist, republican, and teetotaller, a huge man with a huge...
Family and Intimate relationships Annie Besant
AB 's biographer Anne Taylor and other historians say she was in love with Bradlaugh , and he at least to some degree returned her feelings. But he was married, though his wife, Susannah or...
politics Annie Besant
The trial and temporary conviction of AB and Charles Bradlaugh in the summer of 1877 on obscenity charges for publishing the birth control pamphlet Fruits of Philosophy, as well as her public atheism, deprived...
Family and Intimate relationships Annie Besant
The custody decision made it unthinkable that AB might secure a divorce in order to marry Charles Bradlaugh (whose wife had now died).
Mount, Ferdinand. “Get off your knees”. London Review of Books, Vol.
33
, No. 14, pp. 18-19.
18
Family and Intimate relationships Annie Besant
It is hardly surprising in view of the other aspects of her reputation that AB was assumed to be sexually involved with her successive, influential friends, Charles Bradlaugh and Edward Aveling .
Intertextuality and Influence Annie Besant
AB published anonymously in 1875, with Thomas Scott , her first pamphlet on the topic of atheism. On the Nature and Existence of God owed much to the influence of her new friend Charles Bradlaugh
Publishing Annie Besant
The Freethought Publishing Company had been set up by Bradlaugh and Besant on 20 January this year to publish their own work.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
They later advertised a package of books by AB with the claim that...
Friends, Associates Matilda Betham-Edwards
MBE set a great deal of store by meeting men distinguished as authors or in other fields, as a spur to literary achievement of her own. She was given to boasting of her acquaintance with...
Material Conditions of Writing Edna Lyall
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...
Intertextuality and Influence Edna Lyall
Charles Bradlaugh himself tutored EL on the subject of secularism for this novel, which was at first to be called Erica. She had nearly finished writing it by the end of 1882, but during...
Textual Features Edna Lyall
As readers recognized at once, Luke Raeburn, the embattled atheist in this book, noticeably resembles the politician Charles Bradlaugh , who was excluded from taking his seat in the House of Commons after repeatedly being...

Timeline

25 August 1857: The Obscene Publications Act allowed for...

Building item

25 August 1857

The Obscene Publications Act allowed for the censorship of pornographic materials entering Britain.

February 1878: The acquittal of Charles Bradlaugh and Annie...

Building item

February 1878

The acquittal of Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant in their famous obscenity trial meant that distribution of birth control information was no longer illegal.

1892: Sixty-seven year-old phrenologist Henry Loader...

Building item

1892

Sixty-seven year-old phrenologist Henry Loader was prosecuted for selling two birth control manuals, The Wife's Handbook and Fruits of Philosophy.

Texts

Bradlaugh, Charles et al. “Publishers’ Preface”. Fruits of Philosophy: An Essay on the Population Question, 2ndnd ed, Freethought Publishing, 1877, pp. 3-7.