Search results for ""Author Rachel Holmes""

‘A wonderful book … Holmes sublimely illuminates Sylvia’s extraordinary life’ The Times ‘A masterpiece’ Vanessa Redgrave _______________ Born into one of Britain’s most famous activist families, Sylvia Pankhurst was a natural rebel. A free spirit and radical visionary, history placed her in the shadow of her famous mother, Emmeline, and elder sister, Christabel. Yet artist Sylvia Pankhurst was the most revolutionary of them all. Sylvia found her voice fighting for votes for women, imprisoned and tortured in Holloway prison more than any other suffragette. But the vote was just the beginning of her lifelong defence of human rights. She engaged with political giants, warned of fascism in Europe, championed the liberation struggles in Africa and India and became an Ethiopian patriot. Her intimate life was no less controversial. The rupture between Sylvia, Emmeline and Christabel became worldwide news, while her romantic life drew public speculation and condemnation. Rachel Holmes interweaves the personal and political in an extraordinary celebration of a life in resistance, painting a compelling portrait of one of the greatest unsung political figures of the twentieth century. ‘A monument to an astonishing life’ Daily Telegraph, Best Biographies of 2020 ‘A robust and sensitive biography’ Sunday Times, History Books of the Year ‘A moving, powerful biography’ Guardian

Read more less

The extraordinary and dramatic biography of the first modern feminist, who spent her entire life fighting for the principle of equality 'Gripping ... Most lives would be overshadowed by such a melodramatic end. But Marx’s life was so much more than a murder mystery, as Rachel Holmes’s gripping and vividly told biography demonstrates' Sunday Times 'Superb ... The story of this remarkable life is so well told, with a rare combination of pace, verve and scholarship' Jeanette Winterson, Daily Telegraph Unrestrained by convention, lion-hearted and free, Eleanor Marx (1855-98) was an exceptional woman. Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert’s Mme Bovary. She pioneered the theatre of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers' and gas workers’ trades unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later she edited many of his key political works, and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, sexual equality was a necessary precondition for a just society. Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference – her favourite motto: 'Go ahead!’ With her closest friends - among them, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne and William Morris - she was at the epicentre of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: she loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organising until her untimely end, which – with its letters, legacies, secrets and hidden paternity – reads in part like a novel by Wilkie Collins, and in part like the modern tragedy it was. Rachel Holmes has gone back to original sources to tell the story of the woman who did more than any other to transform British politics in the nineteenth century, who was unafraid to live her contradictions.

Read more less

This teacher resource is filled with worksheets, tasks and activities focused on developing the social skills of children on the autistic spectrum aged 8–12. It has been created to be used alongside the story Finding Kite: A Social Skills Adventure Story, although activities can stand alone as a programme of intervention.Each task encourages young people to think about their own experiences, challenges and goals, building self-esteem and confidence along the way. Suitable for use in small groupsor 1:1, the worksheets are flexible in design, allowing the facilitator to respond to the needs of each child.Key features of this resource include:• engaging activities divided into sections focused on ‘making sense of my world’ and ‘connecting with others’;• photocopiable and downloadable worksheets, filled with opportunities for reflection and discussion;• the option to use it alongside the engaging, choose your own adventure story, Finding Kite, which immerses the reader in a sensory adventure.Designed for students aged 8–12, this resource provides an invaluable opportunity to build an understanding of the complexities of social dynamics. Although created with girls on the autistic spectrum in mind, it can be used with students of different genders and adapted for their needs.

Read more less

This compelling choose your own adventure story and accompanying teacher resource have been created to develop the social skills of autistic children aged 8-12. The reader takes on the role of the main character who finds themselves trapped in Tudor England and, confronted by challenging social situations and decisions that could help or hinder the narrative, must solve a mystery to get home. Circumstances throughout the narrative are linked to accompanying worksheets in the teacher resource that explore topics such as wellbeing, teamwork, managing conflict and processing information. Suitable for use in small groups or 1:1, the programme is flexible in design, allowing the facilitator to respond to the needs of each child.Key features of this set include: An engaging illustrated interactive story that places the reader at the heart of the narrative, encouraging discussion and creating moments for deeper thinking and self-reflection

Read more less

The acclaimed biography of Sarah Baartman, once a slave and later a showgirl ‘A significant and timely book … Holmes has produced a laceratingly powerful story’ Frances Wilson, Literary Review 'Impeccable ... In telling her extraordinary story, Holmes's fascinating book illuminates the forces which dominated her age, and resound in our own' Sunday Telegraph In 1810 the slave turned showgirl Sarah Baartman, London’s most famous curiosity, became its legal cause célèbre. Famed for her exquisite physique – in particular her shapely bottom – she was stared at, stripped, pinched, painted, worshipped and ridiculed. This talented, tragic young South African woman became a symbol of exploitation, colonialism – and defiance. In this scintillating and vividly written book Rachel Holmes traces the full arc of Baartman’s extraordinary life for the first time.

Read more less

A reissue of Rachel Holmes's landmark biography of Dr James Barry, one of the most enigmatic figures of the Victorian age. James Barry was one of the nineteenth century’s most exceptional doctors, and one of its great unsung heroes. Famed for his brilliant innovations, Dr Barry influenced the birth of modern medical practice in places as far apart as South Africa, Jamaica and Canada. Barry’s skills attracted admirers across the globe, but there were also many detractors of the ostentatious dandy, who caused controversy everywhere he went. Yet unbeknownst to all, the military surgeon concealed a lifelong secret at the heart of his identity: on his death Barry was claimed to be anatomically female and in fact a cross-dresser. Vividly drawn and meticulously researched, The Secret Life of Dr James Barry brings to life one of the most enigmatic figures of the Victorian age, elevating its subject to a latter-day transgender icon – and is a landmark in the art of biography.

Read more less

This choose your own adventure story is a unique, illustrated resource and a compelling mystery, focused on developing the social skills of children on the autistic spectrum. Trapped in Tudor England in 1535, in a world very different from their own, the reader must take on the role of the main character and work out why horses are mysteriously dying. Confronted by challenging social situations and decisions that will either help or hinder the narrative, they need to solve the mystery in order to get home.The story provides a springboard for children to test out different actions and to experience a range of possible consequences and pathways. Decisions the reader must make tackle challenges such as working together and overcoming conflict, processing information and managing emotions and anxiety.This book:● is an engaging interactive story to enable discussion and create moments for deeper thinking and self-reflection;● can be used either in small groups or 1:1 intervention;● links directly to worksheets from the accompanying teacher resource, providing a personalised development tool that can be flexible according to the child’s needs.Although created with girls in mind, positioning the reader as the main character allows all children to become fully immersed in the narrative. This is an invaluable resource to develop social skills and build confi dence among children aged 8–12.

Read more less

Upon changing his religion, a young man is denounced as an apostate and flees his country hiding in the back of a freezer lorry… After years of travelling and losing almost everything – his country, his children, his wife, his farm – an Afghan man finds unexpected warmth and comfort in a stranger’s home... A student protester is forced to leave his homeland after a government crackdown, and spends the next 25 years in limbo, trapped in the UK asylum system... Modelled on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the second volume of Refugee Tales sets out to communicate the experiences of those who, having sought asylum in the UK, find themselves indefinitely detained. Here, poets and novelists create a space in which the stories of those who have been detained can be safely heard, a space in which hospitality is the prevailing discourse and listening becomes an act of welcome.

Read more less

You’re between two fires… They’re very warm sometimes. Noah Adamson is the first Leader of the Labour Party; frequently torn between his socialism and principled support for votes for women on the one hand and the more reactionary views of too many of his colleagues on the other. A middle-aged married man; he is also in love with the young socialist suffragette Freda McLaird. Things look bleak for the cause and the man. Still Noah – inspired by his soulmate – has time for hope and beauty. He looks forward to a time when the movement will be stronger. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote this previously unpublished play when imprisoned for sedition in the infamous HMP Holloway in 1920/21. Deprived of writing materials in solitary confinement, the legendary activist composed this dramatisation of earlier times with her beloved Keir Hardie – Labour’s founding leader – with a contraband pencil on prison issue toilet paper. It would be nearly a hundred years before Pankhurst’s biographer Rachel Holmes would discover the play via painstaking analysis of the delicate fragments jumbled into brown envelopes in the archives of the British Library. Holmes’ arrangement of the incomplete text brings the poignant story to life in this startlingly topical drama that speaks directly to our own times.

Read more less