More women than men buy books; more women read books and more women write books, especially novels, and they always have. Yet women writers are more often than not consigned to some kind of weird ghetto called women writers. Whoever talked about men writers? Women writers are more likely to go out of print than male writers of the same reputation and calibre. Male writers are more likely to enter the canon of English literature and English school syllabuses than women writers who are equally good, or in many cases better. One English A level syllabus has no woman writer on it at all.
In the last few years Virago Press has set about proving that there are many excellent but neglected women writers well worth publishing and reprinting. This year’s new catalogue appeared last week, listing 46 new books for 1981 — a remarkable success for a small feminist publishing collective which has been in business on its own for only five years. Carmen Callil first started the idea of a feminist press ten years ago. “I was in publicity for a large publishers. That’s traditional women’s work in publishing,” she says. She had founded her own publicity firm and was handling Ink, that alternative magazine of the late sixties and early seventies that flourished briefly and brightly and then perished with the flower children. Virago came out of the first beginnings of the women’s movement in Britain, the same group of friends who started Spare Rib. Between 1973 and 1976, it struggled along under the aegis of another publisher and brought out 10 books. Harriet Spicer, who worked in the publicity firm with Carmen Calill, handled production, and they were joined by Ursula Owen. But it was five years ago that the three of them got together the financial guarantees they needed to strike out independently.
A large part of their list consists of reprinted but often forgotten books by women, many of which have sold extremely well. Antonia White’s Frost in May has sold 17,000, Vera Brittain’s Testaments of Youth, Friendship and Experience have each sold 20,000, Stevie Smith’s books have sold 10,000. Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career has sold 6,000 and they are publishing its sequel this year. They have found books others didn’t know existed. When Penguin published F. M. Mayor’s The Rector’s Daughter, the blurb said it was her only work, but Virago found a second equally powerful book, The Third Miss Symons, which has done well.
Virago has also reprinted most of Christina Stead’s work, with the rest to follow, Dora Russell’s The Tamarisk Tree, works by Dorothy Richardson, Winifred Holtby, Willa Catha, Tillie Olsen, Mary Webb, May Sinclair, and many others. They have published a few books by men about women (Gissing and Shaw among others) — and all their books stay in print. They are beautifully produced, with a distinctive green masthead and perfectly matched paintings on the covers.
Choosing the picture is one of the most enjoyable jobs in the office. They are not equipped to handle real bestsellers and so they shared the rights of Testament of Youth with another publisher. “Most small publishers go bust when they get a best seller. Ironically, that’s what does them in. They have to borrow too much money to produce for the mass market,” said Carmen. Virago is not heading for any bonanza, but for slow and solid growth. “We must survive. It is our duty not to go bust. Virago must be here for future generations, ensuring that women writers are not forgotten again.”
One major stumbling block has been the curious snobbery of literary editors who will not review paperbacks. As a result, many of their reprints have not been reviewed, and all their new books have to have expensive and unprofitable tiny hardback editions, just to catch the eye of literary editors. “We’ve tried everything but there’s no way round it. They will not review paperbacks seriously.”
Carmen Callil is always a bit reluctant to be interviewed because the three of them run the Press together. She is an ebullient energetic character, and, one suspects, a powerful dynamic force driving the enterprise along. She is small, neat, dark, efficient-looking and talks hard and fast, throwing out effusions of thoughts, facts and ideas.
“A BBC radio programme on women and literature came to see me the other day. They went to French and German feminist publishers too. They said the difference between us and the French was that the French women were far more theoretical in their approach. I was a bit indignant at the time. I said I was frightfully intellectual.
“But I know what they meant. We run this place like a kitchen. We have a general view that women’s contribution to history, literature and society has always been crushed, but we’re only now beginning to formulate a view of our work by looking back at what we’ve done. We tend to publish what feels right, and see what it all adds up to afterwards. We all like all the books. We’ve made mistakes about what would sell, but not about what is worth publishing.”
She tries to define her own feminism. “I don’t go for the wet liberal, equal rights bullshit. You know the kind of thing, men at dinner parties who say ‘Actually, I’ve just employed a woman editor’ and think they’ve done their bit. Then there are the people who think women should become like men, but there are quite enough men around. We had something better in mind!”
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