The top 10 books about the suffragettes

It was my dad who first told me about the suffragettes. Aged 12 I was asked at school to prepare a talk on someone important in history. “Why don’t you do Emily Pankhurst?” he suggested. “She’s the one who threw herself under the King’s horse for women’s votes.” Looking back, I greatly appreciate his efforts to steer me in the direction of feminism. But in confusing Emmeline Pankhurst, founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union (the suffragettes), with Emily Wilding Davison, whose protest at the 1913 Derby caused her tragic death, he’d accidentally exposed a huge void in popular awareness when it comes to 20th-century women’s history.

Years later when I began researching my novel, The Hourglass Factory, I discovered a wealth of books out there on suffragettes. An era of turbulence, back-stabbing, bravery and brilliance, I knew I wanted it to form the basis for a conspiracy thread in the story. Here are my favourite books on the subject.

1. The Suffragette Movement: An Intimate Account of Persons and Ideals by E Sylvia Pankhurst (1931)

Sylvia Pankhurst’s book is a comprehensive first-hand account of the suffragette movement. Part memoir, part historical narrative, she takes us from her humble childhood to her friendship with Independent Labour Party founding member Keir Hardie, to her split from the main WSPU to form the East London Federation of Suffragettes. The allegations of torture in Perth prison are chilling, as is the passage in which Pankhurst reports the return of suffragettes from an Albert Hall meeting: “They came in ones and twos, bruised and disheveled …”

2. Unshackled: The Story of How We Won the Vote by Christabel Pankhurst (1959)

Christabel Pankhurst’s history of the WSPU starts with the meeting of her parents and ends with votes being won on equal terms to men - which in a cruel twist of fate coincided with the death of her mother. It’s dense in political history and the minutiae of parliament’s many dodging dances, used to avoid debating the subject of votes for women. But there are also accounts of the creative militant activities of both women and men, including an incident where a member of the Men’s Political Union shimmied up a pillar at a Limehouse meeting to unveil a suffragette banner ‘over the heads of two bewildered Cabinet Ministers.’

3. The Militant Suffragettes by Antonia Raeburn (1974)

This was the first book I picked up on suffragettes and as an introduction to the violent and imaginative activities of the WSPU it’s brilliant. Anecdotes include that of Isabel Kelley - a daredevil who concealed herself on the roof of Dundee’s Kinnaird Hall for 17 hours before breaking in via scaffolding and a skylight - and the creation of an armed guard, wielding wooden clubs for protection of high-level WSPU speakers.

4. Votes for Women by Elizabeth Robins (1907)

This 1907 play was written by the American actress and writer, and follows Vida Levering, a New Woman radicalised by her turbulent past and trying to use her experience to carve a better life for other women. It is thought to have sparked the foundation of the Actresses Franchise League and a spate of copycat suffrage plays. But I love it for its caustic lines. ‘”Mad,” “Unsexed”’ spits Levering. “These are the words today. In the Middle Ages men cried out ‘Witch!’ and burnt her.”

5. Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier (2001)

Chevalier’s 2001 novel introduces the work of the suffragettes as part of a wider exploration of the changing role of women at the turn of the 20th century. As the Victorian era segues into the Edwardian, isolated and unhappy Kitty Coleman, mother of Maude, is introduced to the WSPU. There is no romanticising of suffragette activities here. The book deals head-on with the the choice then facing women between dedicating their time to a noble cause and their conventional role as mothers. The result is heartbreaking.

Votes for Women: The Virago Book of Suffragettes, edited by Joyce Marlow (2001)

This huge collection of documents, speeches, journals, extracts from books and letters relating to the women’s movement is invaluable for history detectives. Highlights include a stiffly worded letter from a gentleman complaining to the home secretary about the lack of sanitary towels for suffragettes in Holloway (while avoiding using the phrase “sanitary towels”) and a Daily Express article about Miss Muriel Matters who took to a dirigible to drop paper bills on parliament in return for their “dropping” of the women’s suffrage bills. Also illuminating is the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage Manifesto, a reminder of how many women were against the suffrage cause.

7. Vindication! A Postcard History of the Women’s Movement by Ian McDonald (1989)

In the early days of the 20th century, postcards were the equivalent of today’s internet memes: a sharp snapshot with a pithy quote or poignant subtitle. McDonald’s book narrates the history of 19th and 20th-century feminism but it’s his chosen images that tell the real story. Pictures of pit workers show women at work in traditionally male domains, while commemorative postcards of the main players in the suffragette movement demonstrate their celebrity status. He also shows how cartoons formed the backbone of the anti-suffrage movement, caricaturing suffragettes as monstrous spinsters.

8. Sally Heathcote, Suffragette by Mary M Talbot, Kate Charlesworth and Bryan Talbot (2014)

This inspired book turns the women’s suffrage battle into a graphic novel. Sally Heathcote starts out as maid to Mrs Pankhurst but quickly joins the ranks of the WSPU on arriving in London. The narrative is brought to life with sharp-angled pictures that flash colour into the bleeding wounds, and triumphant green, white and violet suffragette banners. Through Sally’s eyes the day-to-day life of a working-class Edwardian woman feels fresh and vital. Crucially, the authors don’t shy away from criticising branches of the movement.

9. The Suffragettes in Pictures by Diane Atkinson (2010)

“Deeds not Words” was the WSPU motto, but when it comes to piecing together their history, former London Museum curator Diane Atkinson knows the value of pictures. Documenting the work that went on in and outside suffragette HQ, the book (one of many Atkinson has written on suffragettes) contains photographs of press-room activities, packed marches and welcoming parties for newly-released prisoners, as well as brutal accounts of the abuse of women on what came to be known as Black Friday.

10. No Surrender by Constance Maud (1911)

Constance Maud’s 1911 novel is a tapestry of the conflicting contemporary opinions on women’s suffrage. Mill girl Jenny Clegg becomes a leading light in the WSPU with the encouragement of wealthy, forward-thinking Mary O’Neil. Their adversaries include prison guards, cabinet ministers and male and female “antis”. The final scene is a devastating reminder of the book’s publication date, where Maud concludes: “And now surely the hour of dawn was nearing … The Conciliation Committee had been formed, and the claims of the women would never more be allowed to be pushed aside," blithely unaware that it would be another 17 years until equal franchise was granted.