Diane Atkinson – författare

This book draws extensively on the little-known but important Suffragette Fellowship Collection of archive photographs, newspapers, personal correspondence, artefacts and memoirs, to present a vivid picture of Suffragette life. The strength of the book is its rare images of the Suffragette campaign leading to the outbreak of the First World War. The book also documents leading personalities in the Suffragette movement, such as Emmeline Pankhurst, Annie Kenney and Emily Wilding Davison, the behind-the-scenes activities at the Women’s Social and Political Union, their public propaganda work, the brilliant set-piece demonstrations and the escalation of militancy from ‘pestering the politicians’ to burning down buildings and attacking works of art. The book also explores what happened to these incredible women after their war was won and the vote was granted to them.

A Telegraph Book of 2018An Observer Pick of 2018A New Statesman Book of 2018A definitive history and anarchic celebration of the fight for women’s right to vote; ‘A huge achievement’ Rachel Cooke, Observer‘Glorious’ Sunday Times ‘A definitive history of the suffragettes’ The Times‘Magisterial’ TelegraphBetween the death of Queen Victoria and the outbreak of the First World War, while the patriarchs of the Liberal and Tory parties vied for supremacy in parliament, the campaign for women's suffrage was fought with flair and imagination in the public arena. From their marches on Parliament and 10 Downing Street, to the selling of their paper, Votes for Women, through to the more militant activities of the Women's Social and Political Union, whose slogan 'Deeds Not Words!' resided over bombed pillar-boxes, acts of arson and the slashing of great works of art, the women who participated in the movement endured police brutality, assault, imprisonment and force-feeding, all in the relentless pursuit of one goal: the right to vote.A hundred years on, Diane Atkinson celebrates the lives of the women who answered the call to 'Rise Up'; a richly diverse group of actresses and mill-workers, teachers and doctors, bootmakers and sweated workers. Meticulously researched, vividly rendered and definitive, Rise Up, Women! brings these women to life in a stirring celebration of their grace, resilience and determination that changed the world forever.

With the outbreak of World War I, German-born Kitty Marion, suspected of being a German spy and placed under surveillance, sailed from Liverpool for New York. She left a dramatic and colourful life behind: a hectic and fascinating 20-year career as a performer crisscrossing Britain first as a singer, dancer and actress on the musical comedy and pantomime stage, and then in music hall as a ‘refined comedienne’. She campaigned against the sexual abuses rife in the theatre of the day which led her eventually into the suffragette movement where she became a ‘notorious’ militant, responsible for numerous acts of arson. She was imprisoned, went on hunger-strike, and was force-fed more than 300-times. In America, she became a celebrated ‘foot-soldier’ in Margaret Sanger’s birth control movement. Her autobiography, written in the 1930s is published here for the first time.