"Students and teachers of Victorian women's careers will be grateful for [Mermin's] intelligent and equable guidance as they negotiate the paradoxes of Godiva's Ride." -- Modern Philology "This brief study should be enormously helpful to students seeking an introduction to feminist approaches to Victorian writers." -- Choice "Mermin's fine book is a work of synthesis that moves across many genres of women's writing... and touches on neglected writers of the period... as well as on the canonized few." -- American Historical Review "Godiva's Ride is a stimulating and enjoyable study of an exceptionally rich subject... " -- Victorian Periodicals Review "Accessible, original, and gracefully written, Godiva's Ride is likely to be as engrossing for the general reader as for the expert." -- Victorian Studies Describes the first great age of women's writing in England. Mermin discusses how women were encouraged to become writers, how they were discouraged and hindered, and what they wrote. The many women entering the mainstream of English literature in this era included the Brontës, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Margaret Oliphant, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and Harriet Martineau.

Lady Godivas Book of Horsemanship is a collection of beautiful pictures taken by Robert Royem of semi-nude men and women on or around horses. Each picture gives a hint from true horse whisperers on how to treat your horse and to make life a better experience for you and your animals. Also included is the history of Lady Godiva and her husband Leofric, who promoted the legend of Lady Godiva and her rides naked through the streets of Coventry, England, in the eleventh century.

This book investigates who Lady Godiva was, how the story of her naked horseback ride through Coventry arose, and how the whole Godiva legend has evolved from the thirteenth century through to the present day. Traces the erotic myth of Lady Godiva back to its medieval origins. Based on scholarly research but written to be accessible to general readers. Combines history, literature, art and folklore. Focuses on the twin themes of voyeurism and medievalism. Contributes to our understanding of cultural history, medievalism and the history of sexuality.

It is said that history is written by the winners. However, the “winners” aren’t always the best historians. Enter David Haviland, to set the record straight. In his quirky, inimitable style, Haviland separates fact from fiction regarding some of history’s most well-known people and events, such as: Lady Godiva: By far, history’s most famous nudist equestrian. But how nude was she, really? And how did this same legend give rise to the term “Peeping Tom”? The Boston Tea Party: What was the cause of this famous “party” that wasn’t really a party? (Hint: If you guessed a rise in taxes, you’re dead wrong!) World War I: How did a directionally challenged chauffeur spark the Great War? Queen Victoria: Nowadays, the word “Victorian” is synonymous with stuffy prudishness. But would a prude pose nude for a provocative portrait, or become “close” with a young Indian servant? In The Not-So-Nude Ride of Lady Godiva, Haviland untangles fallacy, farce, and misrepresentation of historic proportions. The end result is a wholly fascinating, highly educational compendium of historical folly that will entertain readers young and old!

We know her name. We know of her naked ride. We don't know her true story. We all know the legend of Lady Godiva, who famously rode naked through the streets of Coventry, covered only by her long, flowing hair. So the story goes, she begged her husband Lord Leofric of Mercia to lift a high tax on her people, who would starve if forced to pay. Lord Leofric demanded a forfeit: that Godiva ride naked on horseback through the town. There are various endings to Godiva's ride, that all the people of Coventry closed their doors and refused to look upon their liege lady (except for ‘peeping Tom') and that her husband, in remorse, lifted the tax. Naked is an original version of Godiva's tale with a twist that may be closer to the truth: by the end of his life Leofric had fallen deeply in love with Lady Godiva. A tale of legendary courage and extraordinary passion, Naked brings an epic story new voice.

Nicole Galland, author of The Fool’s Tale, turns her clever pen toward re-imagining the famous legend of Lady Godiva in this expertly crafted historical novel set in Anglo-Saxon England. A 12th-century noblewoman, Lady Godiva is infamous for riding naked through Coventry to relieve her people of her husband’s unfair and oppressive taxation. Leofric, Earl of Mercia, said he would ease the tax burden if she would ride through the streets, wearing only her glorious, long hair. In doing so she risked everything, including her home and well-being. Told with humor and precise attention to detail, Nicole Galland’s Godiva brings to life the adventures of the legendary lady, her husband and her best friend the Abbess Egdiva in thrilling detail. It’s an entertaining tale of courtly intrigue, deceit, and romance that is sure to captivate fans of literary and historical fiction.

The Montreal Massacre: A Story of Membership Categorization Analysis adopts an ethnomethodological viewpoint to analyze how the murder of women by a lone gunman at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal was presented to the public via media publication over a two-week period in 1989. All that the public came to know and understand of the murders, the murderer, and the victims was constituted in the description and commentaries produced by the media. What the murders became, therefore, was an expression of the methods used to describe and evaluate them, and central to these methods was membership category analysis — the human practice of perceiving people, places, and events as “members” of “categories,” and to use these to explain actions. This is evident in the various versions comprising the overall story of the Massacre: it was a crime; it was a tragedy; it was a horror story. The killer’s story is also based on his own categorial analysis (he said his victims were “feminists”). The media commentators formulated the significance of the murders in categorial terms: it implicated a wider problem, that of violence against women, and thus the reasons for the murders were shown to be categorial matters. As a contribution to sociology, and as a demonstration of the significance of ethnomethodology for understanding social life, the book reveals the methodical and particularly categorial character of how sense is made of events such as this and how such methodical and categorial resources are central to human interaction.

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Britain, 1045. The Normans are circling, waiting their turn to pounce on the English throne and wrest it away from the Anglo-Saxon barons. King Edward the Confessor, the childless, half Norman 'Virgin King' does his Machiavellian best to aid them. Everything centres on the succession. Earl Lovric of Mercia and his powerful wife, Godiva - two of the most powerful of his Anglo-Saxon vassals are inevitably drawn into the machinations at Court. When Edward manipulates their son into a treasonable act and makes him a pawn in his power play, Godiva's maternal instincts rise to the fore. Intrigue and powerplay undermine her own trust in her husband . . . and the stage is set for one of the most powerful mythological stories of British history. This is the story of an independent, resourceful and intelligent noble woman tested to the limits of her endurance, which illuminates one of the great myths of British history.

These are the stories of 365 women, men and children worldwide who have acted as peacemakers during the last 2500 years. They include human rights and antiwar activists, scientists and artists, educators and scholars, songwriters and poets, film directors and authors, diplomats and economists, environmentalists and mystics, prophets and policymakers. All sacrified for the dream of peace, some even died for it.