Overview

This book is the first selected collection of Emmeline Pankhurst's letters, and offers new insights into her political career, transnational social networks and family relationships. Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), was one of the most influential women of the 20th century. Charismatic, determined and a powerful orator, she was very much an activist who considered herself incompetent with a pen. Yet this selected collection of 150 letters compiled and carefully contextualised by leading gender historian June Purvis reveals a woman who could write well and vividly. The letters focus on Emmeline's suffragette years, but they also provide glimpses into the First World War and the Women's Party, of which she was co-founder and co-leader together with her daughter Christabel. Collectively, they offer new insights into her political career, transnational social networks and family relationships. For example, she corresponded with socialist figures such as Philip Snowden and Sam Robinson; with suffragettes such as Caroline Phillips and Elizabeth Robins; with well-known liberals such as C. P. Scott, editor of The Manchester Guardian; with admirers such as Alice Morgan Wright and Alva Belmont; with male symphathisers such as Henry Harben and Hugh Franklin; and with her own family members. This first collection of Emmeline Pankhurst's letters, some of them made available to the public for the first time, will be essential reading for academics and students interested in the history of the suffragette movement and modern British political history.

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9781350092082

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June Purvis is Emeritus Professor of Women's and Gender History at the University of Portsmouth, UK. She is a world-leading authority on the suffragette movement in Edwardian Britain and her publications include Christabel Pankhurst: A Biography (2018) and Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography (2002). She is also the Founding and Managing Editor of Women’s History Review and a regular contributor to BBC History Magazine, Times Education Supplement and Times Literary Supplement. She has made frequent appearances on BBC radio and TV, including Daily Politics, and was one of the historical advisers for the feature film Suffragette, starring Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep.

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