Brayfield, Celia – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk Henley-on-Thames Sun, 15 Sep 2024 06:27:43 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-Bell-Background-Blue-32x32.png Brayfield, Celia – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk 32 32 Writing Black Beauty https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/writing-black-beauty/ Thu, 20 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/writing-black-beauty/ A new biography of author Anna Sewell, whose campaigning spirit and determination was as compelling as her novel Black Beauty still is.

]]> Black Beauty is a novel that changed our world. Intended to ‘induce kindness’ in a Victorian audience who relied on horses for transport, travel and power, it remains a dearly loved children’s classic. Writing Black Beauty is the story of the remarkable woman who wrote this phenomenal book.

Born in 1820 to a young Quaker couple, Anna Sewell grew up in poverty in London. She was 14 when she fell and injured her ankle, leaving her permanently disabled. Rejecting the limitations that Victorian society forced on disabled people, she developed an extraordinary empathy with horses, learning to ride side-saddle and drive a small carriage.

Rebellious and independent-minded, Anna left the Quaker movement as a young woman but remained close friends with the women writers and abolitionists who had been empowered by its liberal principles. It was not until she became terminally ill, aged 51, that she wrote her own book. It was published in 1877, but Anna tragically died just five months later.

After modest success in Britain, Black Beauty was taken up by American activist George Thorndike Angell, who made it one of the bestselling novels of all time. Using newly discovered archive material, Celia Brayfield shows how Anna Sewell developed the extraordinary resilience to rouse the conscience of Victorian Britain and make her mark upon the world.

]]> Rebel Writers https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/rebel-writers/ Thu, 22 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=14955 ‘Make this your next inspirational read. Trust us, it’s Oprah’s Book Club worthy’ ViceIn London in 1958, a play by a 19-year-old redefined women’s writing in Britain. It also began a movement that would change women’s lives forever. The play was A Taste of Honey and the author, Shelagh Delaney, was the first in a succession of young women who wrote about their lives with an honesty that dazzled the world. They rebelled against sexism, inequality and prejudice and in doing so challenged the existing definitions of what writing and writers should be. Bypassing the London cultural elite, their work reached audiences of millions around the world, paved the way for profound social changes and laid the foundations of second-wave feminism. After Delaney came Edna O’Brien, Lynne Reid-Banks, Charlotte Bingham, Nell Dunn, Virginia Ironside and Margaret Forster; an extraordinarily disparate group who were united in their determination to shake the traditional concepts of womanhood in novels, films, television, essays and journalism. They were as angry as the Angry Young Men, but were also more constructive and proposed new ways to live and love in the future. They did not intend to become a literary movement but they did, inspiring other writers to follow. Not since the Brontës have a group of young women been so determined to tell the truth about what it is like to be a girl.In this biographical study, the acclaimed author, Celia Brayfield, tells their story for the first time.

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