Top ten books about the suffragettes

Lucy Ribchester is a fiction and dance writer based in Edinburgh. Her first novel The Hourglass Factory debuts in the UK this month. One of her top ten books about the suffragettes, as shared at the Guardian:

Votes for Women: The Virago Book of Suffragettes, edited by Joyce Marlow (2001)

This huge collection of documents, speeches, journals, extracts from books and letters relating to the women’s movement is invaluable for history detectives. Highlights include a stiffly worded letter from a gentleman complaining to the home secretary about the lack of sanitary towels for suffragettes in Holloway (while avoiding using the phrase “sanitary towels”) and a Daily Express article about Miss Muriel Matters who took to a dirigible to drop paper bills on parliament in return for their “dropping” of the women’s suffrage bills. Also illuminating is the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage Manifesto, a reminder of how many women were against the suffrage cause.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue