A re-issue of Martin Pugh's comprehensive and compelling biography of the Pankhurst family, an extraordinary family whose work for the rights of women challenged the very heart of the polticial and social establishment
The suffragettes outraged Victorian society, yet behind the protests, arrests and hunger strikes, the personal lives of Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters were just as dramatic. Martin Pugh reveals the full story of this unique family: Emmeline, the domineering mother; Christabel, the favourite daughter who became an Adventist and admirer of Mussolini; Sylvia, the 'scarlet woman'; and Adela, banished to Australia after a bitter rift. It is an astonishing account of the triumphs and tragedies of four extraordinary women.
Author Biography
Martin Pugh lectured in History at the Aligarh Muslim University in India on Voluntary Service Overseas, 1969-1971. After completing a Ph.D. at Bristol in 1974, he was successively, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Professor in Modern British History at Newcastle University until 1999 when he took very early retirement. From 1999 to 2002 he was part-time Research Professor in History at Liverpool John Moores University. He is the author of ten books and many articles and pamphlets on nineteenth and twentieth century British political, social and women's history, and is currently an adviser and contributor to the BBC History Magazine.
Reviews
A marvellously gripping narrative with twists and turns of shock and poignancy that are worthy of a three-decker Victorian novel...exposes the full extent of the dysfunctional family that lay just beneath the surface of the Pankhursts' public image,Takes all the previous works on its subject and nudges them off the shelf,An unrivalled history... Its suffragette heroines are stunning and scary in equal degrees, dazzling in their courage, startling in their strategic shifts, baffling in the pain they caused each other,Move over, Mitfords, The Pankhursts demand centre stage, as women who emerged from Edwardian drapery to break the rules of British society
