Marie Bashkirtseff was of one of the most extraordinary women of the 19th century. Her Journal (originally comprising some 20,000 hand-written pages but pared down to a few hundred for publication) was a cause célèbre after her death and continues to be an inspiration to the Women’s Movement to this day. It also inspired such great writers as Anaïs Nin and Katherine Mansfield among many others. Born into an aristocratic family in a village in Ukraine the family soon settled in France, first in Nice and later in Paris. Taught entirely by tutors Marie spoke multiple languages, played numerous musical instruments and longed for a singing career on the stage. An illness that affected her throat made her change course and she took up painting for which she had a latent talent. As a student at the Académie Julian in Paris she was soon exhibiting at the annual Paris Salon, the premier venue for artists. But it was her personality that makes Marie Bashkirtseff such an exceptional individual. At a very young age she was already exhibiting in her Journal the thoughts of a learned philosopher, wrestling with the nature of God, the position of women in society, the politics of men. Having contracted tuberculosis in early childhood she ceaselessly strove to shrug it off in her quest to achieve greatness. In the end, a great tragedy unfolds. The book is somewhat unique in format. The first part is a biographical section that describes Marie’s unusual and fascinating life. Then a second section, consists of a single Journal excerpt (in English translation from the original French) on each left-hand page, juxtaposed with one of her outstanding works of art on the facing page. In this manner, we learn about her remarkable life and tribulations, enter her restive and brilliant mind via her Journal, as well as appreciate her exceptionally fine works as an artist.

Marie Bashkirtseff was of one of the most extraordinary women of the 19th century. Her Journal (originally comprising some 20,000 hand-written pages but pared down to a few hundred for publication) was a cause cElEbre after her death and continues to be an inspiration to the Women's Movement to this day. It also inspired such great writers as AnaIs Nin and Katherine Mansfield among many others. Born into an aristocratic family in a village in Ukraine the family soon settled in France, first in Nice and later in Paris. Taught entirely by tutors Marie spoke multiple languages, played numerous musical instruments and longed for a singing career on the stage. An illness that affected her throat made her change course and she took up painting for which she had a latent talent. As a student at the AcadEmie Julian in Paris she was soon exhibiting at the annual Paris Salon, the premier venue for artists. But it was her personality that makes Marie Bashkirtseff such an exceptional individual. At a very young age she was already exhibiting in her Journal the thoughts of a learned philosopher, wrestling with the nature of God, the position of women in society, the politics of men. Having contracted tuberculosis in early childhood she ceaselessly strove to shrug it off in her quest to achieve greatness. In the end, a great tragedy unfolds. The book is somewhat unique in format. The first part is a biographical section that describes Marie's unusual and fascinating life. Then a second section, consists of a single Journal excerpt (in English translation from the original French) on each left-hand page, juxtaposed with one of her outstanding works of art on the facing page. In this manner, we learn about her remarkable life and tribulations, enter her restive and brilliant mind via her Journal, as well as appreciate her exceptionally fine works as an artist.

Destination for artists and convalescents, playground of the rich, site of foreign allure, the French Riviera has long attracted visitors to its shores. Ranging through the late nineteenth century, the Belle Epoque, the ‘roaring twenties’, and the emancipatory post-war years, Rosemary Lancaster highlights the contributions of nine remarkable women to the cultural identity of the Riviera in its seminal rise to fame. Embracing an array of genres, she gives new focus to feminine writings never previously brought together, nor as richly critically explored. Fiction, memoir, diary, letters, even cookbooks and choreographies provide compelling evidence of the innovativeness of women who seized the challenges and opportunities of their travels in a century of radical social and artistic change.

Marie Bashkirtseff was of one of the most extraordinary women of the 19th century. Her Journal (originally comprising some 20,000 hand-written pages but pared down to a few hundred for publication) was a cause cÉlÈbre after her death and continues to be an inspiration to the Women's Movement to this day. It also inspired such great writers as AnaÏs Nin and Katherine Mansfield among many others. Born into an aristocratic family in a village in Ukraine the family soon settled in France, first in Nice and later in Paris. Taught entirely by tutors Marie spoke multiple languages, played numerous musical instruments and longed for a singing career on the stage. An illness that affected her throat made her change course and she took up painting for which she had a latent talent. As a student at the AcadÉmie Julian in Paris she was soon exhibiting at the annual Paris Salon, the premier venue for artists. But it was her personality that makes Marie Bashkirtseff such an exceptional individual. At a very young age she was already exhibiting in her Journal the thoughts of a learned philosopher, wrestling with the nature of God, the position of women in society, the politics of men. Having contracted tuberculosis in early childhood she ceaselessly strove to shrug it off in her quest to achieve greatness. In the end, a great tragedy unfolds. The book is somewhat unique in format. The first part is a biographical section that describes Marie's unusual and fascinating life. Then a second section, consists of a single Journal excerpt (in English translation from the original French) on each left-hand page, juxtaposed with one of her outstanding works of art on the facing page. In this manner, we learn about her remarkable life and tribulations, enter her restive and brilliant mind via her Journal, as well as appreciate her exceptionally fine works as an artist.

The English born artist and writer Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) has received much critical acclaim and achieved stellar status in Mexico, where she lived and worked for most of her life, having fled Europe via Spain in tormenting circumstances. Leonora Carrington: Living Legacies brings together a collection of chapters that constitute a range of artistic, scholarly and creative responses to the realm of Carrington emphasizing how her work becomes a medium, a milieu, and a provocation for new thinking, being and imagining in the world. The diversity of contributions from scholars, early career researchers, and artists, include unpublished papers, interviews, creative provocations, and writing from practice-led interventions. Collectively they explore, question, and enable new ways of thinking with Carrington’s legacy. Wishing to expand on recent important scholarly publications by established Carrington researchers which have brought historical and international significance to the artist’s legacy, this volume offers new perspectives on the artist’s relevance in feminist thinking and artistic methodologies. Conscious of Carrington’s reluctance to engage in critical analysis of her artwork we have approached this scholarly task through a lens of give and return that the artist herself musingly articulates in her 1965 mock-manifesto Jezzamathatics: “I was decubing the root of a Hyperbollick Symposium … when the latent metamorphosis blurted the great unexpected shriek into something between a squeak and a smile. IT GAVE, so to speak, in order to return.” (Aberth, 2010:149). In adopting her playful conjecture, this publication seeks to bring Carrington and her work to further prominence.

Paris was the epicenter of art during the latter half of the nineteenth century, luring artists from around the world with its academies, museums, salons, and galleries. Despite the city's cosmopolitanism and its cultural stature, Parisian society remained strikingly conservative, particularly with respect to gender. Nonetheless, many women painters chose to work and study in Paris at this time, overcoming immense obstacles to access the city's resources. 'Women Artists in Paris, 1850-1900' showcases the remarkable artistic production of women during this period of great cultural change, revealing the breadth and strength of their creative achievements. Guest Curator Laurence Madeline (Chief Curator at Musées d'art et d'histoire, Geneva) has selected close to seventy compelling paintings by women of varied nationalities, ranging from well-known artists such as Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and Rosa Bonheur, to lesser-known figures such as Kitty Kielland, Louise Breslau, and Anna Ancher.

Women have fulfilled film roles that exhibit their historically subservient or sexualised positions in society, among others. Over the decades, the gender identity of women has fluctuated to include powerful women, emotionally strong women, lesbian women, and even neurologically atypical women. These identities reflect the change in societal norms and what is now acknowledged as more likely and more mainstream. The evolution of society’s views of women can be mapped through these roles; from 1950’s America where women were depicted as the counterpart to male characters and their masculinity either as a threat or support to the patriarchal norms; to more recent times, where these norms have been questioned, challenged, deconstructed and reconstructed to include women in a more equitable balance. The fight for equal access, equal pay and equal standing still exists in all walks of life and different cultures requiring continued scrutiny of the norms that made that fight necessary. The essays offer a unique vantage of the changing culture and conversations that allowed, encouraged, and praised an evolution of women’s roles. They strive to represent the issues faced by women, from the early heyday of Hollywood through to films as recent as 2007; examining depictions of the masculine gaze, mental and physical oppression, the mother figure, as well as how these roles may develop in the future. The book contains valuable material for film students at an undergraduate or post-graduate level, as well as scholars from a range of disciplines including cultural studies, media studies, film studies and women’s and gender studies.

Elizabeth Craven’s fascinating life was full of travel, love-affairs and scandals but this biography, the first to appear for a century, is the only one to focus on her as a writer and draw attention to the full range of her output, which raises her stature as an author considerably. Born into the upper class of Georgian England, she was pushed into marriage at sixteen to Lord Craven and became a celebrated society hostess and beauty, as well as mother to seven children. Though acutely conscious of her relative lack of education, as a woman, she ventured into writing poetry, stories and plays. Incompatibility and infidelities on both sides ended her marriage and she had to move to France where, living in seclusion, she wrote the little-known feminist work Letters to Her Son. In the years that followed, she travelled extensively all over Europe and turned her letters into a travelogue which is one of her best-known works. On her return she went to live in Germany as the companion and eventually second wife of the Margrave of Ansbach. At his court she organised and appeared in theatricals, and wrote several more plays of great interest, including The Modern Philosopher. In 1792 she and the Margrave settled in England, where they were never fully accepted by the more strait-laced pillars of society but mixed with all the musicians and actors and the more rakish of the Regency set. Craven continued to put on her own theatricals and write for the theatre. In her old age, she moved to Naples where she passed her time sailing, gardening and writing her Memoirs. Even in her final years, scandal dogged her, and Craven made her feminist principles and criticisms of the laws of marriage apparent through her involvement in the notorious divorce case of Queen Caroline.