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Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Oct 5, 2024 12:37 PM

Author:Pam Hirsch

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon was the most unconventional and influential leader of the Victorian women's movement. Enormously talented, energetic and original, she was a feminist, law-reformer, painter, journalist, the close friend of George Eliot and a cousin of Florence Nightingale. As a painter, Barbara is now recognised as a vital figure among Pre-Raphaelite women artists. As a feminist she led four great campaigns: for married women's legal status, for the right to work, the right to vote and to education. Making brilliant use of unpublished journals and letters, Pam Hirsch has written a biography that is as lively and powerful as its subject, recreating the woman in all her moods, and placing her firmly in the context of women's struggle for equality.

Reviews

Little has been written about Barbara Bodichon. Pam Hirsch rectifies this with gusto and a fine attention to detail...a full, affectionate, attentive biography

—— Frances Spalding , Daily Telegraph

As ever, Burchill's writing seems fuelled as much by mischievousness as indignation.

—— Guardian Review

She is always, always funnier, wittier and more memorable than any of her alleged rivals.

—— Word Magazine

Rivetingly entertaining

—— AN Wilson , Observer, Books of the Year

On the intellectual debates...that exercised these characters she is excellent, describing books and linking ideas with panache. There are, too, many moments when the story of 142 Strand comes very vividly to life

—— Matthew Sturgis , Sunday Telegraph

[Ashton] comes close to creating something far more original than a standard biography: not a romance, but the real-life equivalent of a Victorian multi-plot novel; a web of human connections that comes closer than any recent historical study to capturing the spirit of the age

—— Robert Douglas-Fairhurst , New Statesman

A truly marvellous evocation of a group of people living at the centre of Victorian life. She draws a picture so vivid it is like a novel; so detailed and dramatic in all its emotional twists and turns that we feel we are living through its story. ..a real page turner

—— Daily Mail

Brilliant, sparkling and witty

—— Ian Kershaw

A rich and fascinating account.... His unravelling of the theories is a model of common sense and responsible reasoning

—— AC Grayling , The Times

Anyone who has toyed with suspicion over the accidental nature of Princess Diana's death, or the self-inflicted nature of David Kelly's, will have that flirtation brutally curtailed by Aaronovitch's caustic rationality

—— Observer

A useful book about an important subject

—— Giles Foden , Guardian

With dark wit and extraordinary patience he lays bare the psychology of conspiracism

—— Nick Cohen

Voodoo Histories is as concerned with understanding conspiracies as it is with rebutting them, and Aaronovitch's tone throughout is that of the sage psychologist, his method that of the forensic historian

—— New Statesman

Fascinating

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

Admirably diligent

—— Rafael Behr , Observer

He is articulate, well-versed and a good writer; it's worth reading this whether you agree with him or not.

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

Fascinating account of the major conspiracy theories of the past 100 years

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

Aaronovitch aims to do more than expose popular nonsense

—— Rafael Behr , Observer

Forensically intelligent and hugely enjoyable study of modern conspiracy theories...consistently reasonable, persuasive and humane

—— Christopher Hart , Sunday Times

Solid, well-researched and unexpectedly gripping

—— Christopher Hirst , Independent

[Aaronovitch] is, broadly speaking, an enemy of conspiracy theories. He is also articulate, well versed in the facts and a good writer

—— William Leith , Scotsman

Aaronovitch painstakingly dissects these and some of the other great conspiracy theories of the age and demonstrates with merciless clarity what utter tripe they are.

—— Mail on Sunday

A serious, entertaining and shocking investigation into the stuff that conspiracy theories are made of. Aaronovitch guides us through the half-truths and speculation and examines the distrust of officialdom which fuels conspiracists' imagination.

—— Independent on Sunday

In its many-layered discoveries, the book is truly magnetic

—— Jane Knight , The Times
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