Portraits to the Wall (Women on Women) [Paperback]

Rose Collis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0304328510 | ISBN-13: 978-0304328512

Focusing on British and European women, this is an accessible study of lesbian history. Each chapter documents and examines a woman's life and work, or the nature of a particular partnership. Some of the women featured are famous, such as Greta Garbo, Ethel Smyth, Eve Balfour and Queen Anne, while some of the others' lives have not been documented to date. In considering each person or pair the following questions are asked: were the women "infits" or "outfits" in terms of their sexuality?; how were their relationships conducted?; how much did social status/background dictate the extent of their openness or compromise?; what sort of role models where they in their day to other women?; and what legacy did they create, if any, to the status/visibility of the contemporary lesbian?. A wide range of women of different eras, nationalities, ages and social backgrounds are discussed.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Collis sketches 12 historic English and European women who, although generally unrecognized as such, she says were lesbian. Offsetting objectors to her characterizations, she prefatorily acknowledges the always dicey problems of definitions and standards of proof when applying sexuality labels. Some of her subjects, though--French artist Rosa Bonheur, composer and suffragist Dame Ethel Smyth, and Spanish mystic and screenwriter Mercedes De Acosta--have been candid already in autobiographies. Two less famous subjects, Catherina Linck and Catherina Muhlhahn, are unambiguous because they were tried for sodomy in early-eighteenth-century Saxony; Collis makes their case the occasion to recap the history of European laws regarding lesbians. Other subjects are England's Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill, Nobel Prize-winning author Selma Lagerl"f, organic gardening innovator Eve Balfour, member of Parliament Maureen Colquhoun, Anglo-Irish antivivisectionist Frances Power Cobb, and Edy Craig, daughter of the famous English actress Ellen Terry. Marie Kuda --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (March 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0304328510
• ISBN-13: 978-0304328512
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,700,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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