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Alec-Tweedie, Mrs.
Women and Soldiers.
Publisher: John Lane, London;
Date of Publication: 1918
Stock Code: 3318
Octavo, pp., ix, 184. Frontispiece of Christmas Eve 1916 in the Leslie Tweedie Memorial Lounge; errata slip tipped-in at title-page: "This book was finished at Xmas, 1917, but delay in publication has been caused by the paper difficulty." Publisher’s rose red cloth with black titles to spine and upper board. The unclipped pictorial dust-jacket (photographic portrait of the author) and brief biographical note to rear panel. Cloth rubbed to edges with a couple of bumps to top and sunned to areas of wrapper loss. Sporadic light foxing and finger-marking, mainly to endpapers and early leaves. Publisher’s review copy with stamp[ to title-page.. Jacket soiled, nicked and creased to edge with small loss head/tail of spine and corners; 1-inch split across spine onto front and a few inky fingerprints to portrait edge. Biographer, historian, journalist, photographer, painter, philanthropist, and intrepid traveller (amongst other accomplishments) Ethel Brilliana Tweedie (1862–1940) was the daughter of Dr George Harley of Harley Street and a descendant of Brilliana Harley, famed for her spirited defence of the family home Brampton Bryan Castle, besieged during the English Civil wars. Ethel attended Queen's College in Harley Street, the first college in England open to women, and was an early supporter of women’s rights and female suffrage as well as an intrepid horseback explorer, sportswoman and expert needlewoman, who climbed Alpine peaks in snowshoes. After the sudden deaths of both her father and husband, she was left impoverished and turned to writing for an income, producing numerous memoirs based on her travels and experiences abroad. The subject matter of this publication is a departure from her usual topics, aimed at a female readership and highlighting the vital role of women in the war effort, in the workplace and in the domestic sphere. She advocates female suffrage and women MPs, easier divorce, equal pay and rights and a number of radical social reforms. Scarce, but especially so in the original 1918 dust-jacket.
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