Publisher who founded Virago, which champions women’s writing and books on feminist topicsThe idea for the feminist publishing company Virago came to Carmen Callil, who has died aged 84, “like the switching on of a lightbulb”. Since the revelation occurred during drinks to mark the first issue of the feminist magazine Spare Rib in 1972, her first inclination was to call it Spare Rib Books. Then she and the journalist Rosie Boycott chanced on the word virago – a heroic, warlike woman – in a book about goddesses. The resulting venture radically expanded the published range of writing by women and transformed the role of women in publishing itself.Virago aimed to provide a mass-market publisher for 52% of the population – women – at a time when they were permitted neither mortgages nor bank loans. Marsha Rowe, a co-founder of Spare Rib, had explained the ideas of the “very serious American feminists” of the 60s to Callil, the magazine’s publicist, whose own feminism had been learned at her mother’s knee. “I never had any time for the bra-burning Daily Mail nonsense because it didn’t include men … The number of men who helped me get Virago off the ground is legion.” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2022-10-18 13:15:32 UTC ]
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Publisher adept at balancing the demands of literature and commerce, and a notable writer on artIn his prime, with his coloured shirts, red braces, bright bow ties and macho cigars there were few more flamboyant London publishers than Tom Rosenthal, who has died aged 78. But the extravagant top... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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My friend Mary Cowan, who has died aged 99, rebelled against her privileged background and in the 1930s became a communist.She was born in Edinburgh, where her father, John Jameson, was the Conservative MP for Edinburgh West. Her mother, Margaret (nee Smith), was the daughter of a master of... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Britain's first homegrown existentialist star, he failed to follow up the huge success of his 1956 book, The OutsiderFor a few dazzling months, Colin Wilson, who has died aged 82, was taken at his own valuation in his diary as "the major literary genius of our century", a writer destined to be... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publisher of military history books and husband of Jilly CooperLeo Cooper, who has died aged 79 after suffering from Parkinson's disease, was a publisher with a zeal for military history, who also enjoyed some notoriety as the husband of the novelist Jilly Cooper.Leo's hospitality was out of all... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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My friend Paul Westlake, who has died of cancer aged 65, was a pillar of the radical publishing world from the mid-1970s onwards. He was an advocate of workers' co-operatives and gained much experience in ensuring that the output of independent publishers reached the bookshops.In autumn 1976,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Journalist, biographer and author who explored the history of property ownership in AmericaThe Scottish author Andro Linklater was fascinated by the relationship between people and land. His death at the age of 68 from a heart attack came while he was on the isle of Eigg, researching for a new... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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