A Pageant of Great Women
- London: The Suffrage Shop, 1910
London: The Suffrage Shop, 1910. First edition. Very Good. Small quarto. 69 pp. (printed on one side only). With fifteen photo plates (including frontispiece) by Lena Connell (1875 – 1949) of suffragists and actresses in costume as the great women of history. The photographs, which capture stars like the leading acress Ellen Terry (as Nance Oldfield) and the theater producer Edith Craig (as Rosa Bonheur), were sold to raise funds for the suffrage cause and were later exhibited at the Royal Photographic Society. Publisher's gray paper over boards, holding firm despite some separation to paper at front hinge. Some toning to edges of boards. Toning to endpapers and a bit of foxing to edges of leaves. Front free endpaper with the presentation inscription of Marie Sugden, secretary of the Manchester branch of the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), to a Mr. Palmer, "In grateful appreciation of your help in the Woman’s Cause – October 1910," and a mounted ALS from Sugden to Palmer that accompanied her gift of the book. A Very Good copy of one of the most famous suffragist promotional plays.
Cicely Hamilton (1872 – 1952), a suffragist, birth control advocate, and abortion law reformer, was invited by the actress Edith Craig to write A Pageant of Great Women in 1910. The play features a cast of fifty-two women (including Jane Austen, Marie Curie, Sappho, the Empress Dowager Cixi, and the Indian revolutionary Rani Lakshmibai) to highlight women's independence and leadership. At the time, suffrage plays were an effective and popular method of spreading the word of the women's movement, and A Pageant of Great Women became one of the most popular entries in the genre, alongside Hamilton's How the Vote Was Won and Elizabeth Robins' Votes for Women. These plays spread through the United Kingdom as the numerous local suffrage groups, many of them united within the NUWSS, staged performances.
Hamilton was involved with the Pankhursts' Women's Social and Political Union and co-founded her own suffragist organization, the Women Writers' Suffrage League, with Bessie Hatton in 1908. The group, which grew to around four hundred members, included Elizabeth Robins, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Beatrice Harraden, Alice Meynell, and Olive Schreiner. Hamilton was also the author of Marriage as a Trade (1909), an "uncompromising outburst of indignation against...the tyranny of marriage which women were often compelled to enter because it was the only trade for which they had received any training" (ODNB).
Marie Sugden was a suffragist and actress involved with the NUWSS. In 1909, she served as the secretary of the Manchester branch of the NUWSS, and became the secretary of the Letchworth branch in 1913. The Manchester branch presumably performed A Pageant in October of 1910, and Sugden presented this copy of the book to Mr. Palmer as a thanks for his help in the effort. Sugden writes, “Will you accept this little book with many thanks from a very grateful suffrage secretary? It is hardly a ‘classic’ but I think it may be, in years to come, a rather interesting memento of the women’s struggle for the vote and of your share in the fight on one particular occasion.”. Very Good.
Cicely Hamilton (1872 – 1952), a suffragist, birth control advocate, and abortion law reformer, was invited by the actress Edith Craig to write A Pageant of Great Women in 1910. The play features a cast of fifty-two women (including Jane Austen, Marie Curie, Sappho, the Empress Dowager Cixi, and the Indian revolutionary Rani Lakshmibai) to highlight women's independence and leadership. At the time, suffrage plays were an effective and popular method of spreading the word of the women's movement, and A Pageant of Great Women became one of the most popular entries in the genre, alongside Hamilton's How the Vote Was Won and Elizabeth Robins' Votes for Women. These plays spread through the United Kingdom as the numerous local suffrage groups, many of them united within the NUWSS, staged performances.
Hamilton was involved with the Pankhursts' Women's Social and Political Union and co-founded her own suffragist organization, the Women Writers' Suffrage League, with Bessie Hatton in 1908. The group, which grew to around four hundred members, included Elizabeth Robins, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Beatrice Harraden, Alice Meynell, and Olive Schreiner. Hamilton was also the author of Marriage as a Trade (1909), an "uncompromising outburst of indignation against...the tyranny of marriage which women were often compelled to enter because it was the only trade for which they had received any training" (ODNB).
Marie Sugden was a suffragist and actress involved with the NUWSS. In 1909, she served as the secretary of the Manchester branch of the NUWSS, and became the secretary of the Letchworth branch in 1913. The Manchester branch presumably performed A Pageant in October of 1910, and Sugden presented this copy of the book to Mr. Palmer as a thanks for his help in the effort. Sugden writes, “Will you accept this little book with many thanks from a very grateful suffrage secretary? It is hardly a ‘classic’ but I think it may be, in years to come, a rather interesting memento of the women’s struggle for the vote and of your share in the fight on one particular occasion.”. Very Good.