Emily Wilding Davison: The Martyr Suffragette

by Lucy Fisher

Overview

Emily Wilding Davison was the most famous suffragette to die in the battle for women's rights, after colliding with the King's horse at the Epsom Derby in 1913, but who was she, and how did she end up dying for her cause?

Her notorious final act of protest has for decades obscured her extraordinary life. Now, one hundred years on from the first British women winning the vote, this new biography reveals the story of the respectable governess who pivoted towards vandalism and violence in pursuit of female enfranchisement.

Times journalist Lucy Fisher draws on the suffragette's own words, contemporary press reports and academic scholarship to paint a vivid picture of Davison's unusual tale and tragic finale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785904134
Publisher:	Biteback Publishing, Ltd.
Publication date:	07/24/2018
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Lucy Fisher is senior political correspondent at The Times, having started her career as a journalist at the Sunday Times. She has previously won the Anthony Howard Award, a year-long fellowship during which she wrote for The Times, The Observer and the New Statesman. She is a regular broadcaster on the BBC and Sky News. She read Greats at Oxford University and grew up in Wiltshire.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Emily Wilding Davison’s qualities – total dedication to a controversial cause, preparedness to endure suffering and vilification, super-activism, almost supernatural resilience – these are the very qualities that today’s generation of feminists need. A book for boys and men, too, to learn that women changed the world.” Harriet Harman

“In Lucy Fisher's compelling narrative Emily Wilding Davison finds her ideal biographer. Here is the story of a courageous woman, intelligent, dedicated, uncompromising, told in sympathetic detail – warts and all. As I read of Davison's seven hunger strikes and the forty-nine times she was force-fed, I admired her bravery and was awed by her sustained militancy. We owe her much and Lucy Fisher brings to her story a keen, appraising eye.” Joan Bakewell

“Lucy Fisher's compelling account of Emily Wilding Davison's struggle is a must-read. Her biography paints a vivid picture of an extraordinarily committed and radical suffragette who dedicated her life to the women's movement. I can't recommend this book enough – and would urge anyone interested in the feminist struggle to read it.” Caroline Lucas, MP

“Compelling, enraging and inspiring. Lucy Fisher reveals Emily Wilding Davison to have been a passionate and difficult woman whom it is impossible not to admire.” Caroline Criado Perez

“ Lucy Fisher's definitive and dashing narrative honours Emily Wilding Davison, who died for Votes for Women.” Diane Atkinson, author of Rise Up Women

Editorial Reviews

"Political journalist Lucy Fisher’s debut is a compelling examination of the short but eventful life of the suffragette Emily Davison, who sacrificed her life at the 1913 Derby, living up to her organisation’s maxim of “deeds not words”. Fisher’s skilful biography unpacks the apparent contradictions in Davison’s life; born into upper-middle-class privilege, a series of tragic reversals saw her family reduced to poverty and led her to become radicalised from a young age. Fisher does not shy away from describing the cruelty of the treatment that suffragettes received, but makes a convincing case for Davison having achieved a great deal more than simply being a martyr to the cause." - Alexander Larman, the Observer

From the Publisher