I felt the same uplift and watched another audience swell to pride and tears with the great comic and humanist Sandi Toksvig when she, as part of her extensive tour for her novel Valentine Grey, stood small on the vast stage of Richmond Theatre and asked us to rise and join her in conducting Beethoven’s Fifth. It’s a long story . . . but all one needs to know is that by this time in the show we would have done anything she asked. And we did.
I looked at dear Sandi on the stage and thought, here is an outspoken political critic, a gay woman, a mother of three, a feminist: a ‘type’, we are lead to believe, thanks to the tabloids, that gives middle England some anxieties. But instead they know and love her. She has opened herself to them and they have responded. Sandi has written one of the most genuinely creative and rewarding memoirs Virago has ever published, Between the Stops: The View of My Life from the Top of the Number 12 Bus.
‘I think we’re genetically programmed to tell stories; it’s how we make sense of the world. In order to successfully negotiate the world you have to able to put yourself in imaginary scenarios, in other people’s stories. Empathy is a great driver of fiction—and of reading: that’s a very basic need we have . . .’ I think Sarah Waters is right: a good novel can tell us something that we cannot experience or know ourselves; it transports us. I rail against the idea of a novel only being appealing if the characters are ‘relatable’ or likeable; of course it’s deeply pleasurable to find aspects of your story, your background, your country in a novel, but what I want is to have even those feelings enlarged in a way that will take me further than myself. Surely the only criterion is are they credible? Going well outside oneself, exploring the other, is what good books are about.
Knowing our readers and wanting to reach out, to open ourselves to those who don’t know us—or don’t care about us—has been at the heart of Virago from the start. Crudely, it might be called ‘marketing feminism’, and indeed people have said that about Virago. But we have always planned to balance our books, in every sense of that phrase. I know and I understand the queasiness that ‘marketing’ evokes. But empathy and understanding, curiosity, and listening closely to the other: might that be another definition of reaching out to people? Might that even be a way to change people’s minds? My view is that we change things by knowing where one must stand, unbending, but also by knowing where to meet part way; where to make things easier and more inviting for people. And indeed for us, the gatekeepers, to understand that we don’t know it all; we have to listen to learn.
We’re trying our best, is what I will say and what I surmise the current Viragos would too. But maybe they’ll do it differently. That’s for the next generation of Viragos to work out. What is so heartening is to see in them the same fervour, intelligence, style, taste, drive—and even bloody-mindedness—that from the beginning has characterized the women who have made the choices about Virago books.
This is my bite of the Virago apple. The apple logo, which came to Virago via Carmen’s amusing green apple on one leg she had designed for her publicity company, symbolizes the myth about the first woman who took a bite of knowledge—and suffered the consequences. I like instead to think she relished that juicy bite, and that she’d enjoy knowing her apple became the symbol for a publishing house that mirrors the marvellous march of women. That brings them words that nourish.
Who owns dear Virago? Many of the battles and the dramas and the anger and the pleasures rest on this question. We Viragos have fought over who literally owns it and who should own it, and we—and others—have gloried in owning it. Feminists have claimed it from the beginning: demanding, suggesting, and celebrating the press. Readers have identified with Virago; felt they are part of a club, thrilled to the like-minded authors and readers who have given them so much pleasure and a sense of recognition, who have introduced new voices to them. We have thousands of fans now; social media has brought us even closer to our readers. Authors have come to us with enthusiasm. Booksellers have supported us, as have our current owners. When we—the Virago shareholders—argued over to whom to sell our company, we were conscious of our readers and our authors; we referred to the Virago in the room. Whatever we did, we said, she must go on. As Publisher and now as Virago Chair, still working with my authors, I have kept that faith throughout the years we’ve been part of Little, Brown. I know that the women—and men—who work with Virago feel the same way. Virago will always be her own woman; heroic, just like her name.
One of Carmen’s famous quotes is, ‘The power to publish is a wonderful thing.’ She’s right. The excitement of bringing into the world something unique, a book that began as a glimmer of an idea, or writing that might give tremendous joy or even create change—that, to me, is a power of the deepest pleasure.
Notes
Part ONE
‘The sense of limitless freedom . . .’: Angela Carter, ‘Notes from the front line’, in Michelene Wandor (ed.), On Gender and Writing (London: Pandora, 1983). 1
Chapter ONE
‘In England, then, being Canadian . . .’: Margaret Atwood, ‘Dump bins and shelf strips’, A Virago Keepsake to Celebrate Twenty Years of Publishing (London: Virago, 1993) 4
‘help in the struggle for World Peace . . .’: Left Book Club brochure, 1936, quoted in Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victor Gollancz: A Biography (London: Gollancz, 1987). 9
‘I was inspired by the explosive energy of underground press’s . . .’: Quoted at https://www.cardiffwomensaid.org.uk/second-wave-feminism/. 10
‘in the ’70s I asked the head of BBC News . . .’: Joan Bakewell, ‘Dame Joan Bakewell: The battle isn’t over for women on TV’, https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/tv-and-film/bafta-joan-bakewell/, 1 May 2019. 10
‘It seems cool, vibrant, sexy . . .’: Amy Annette, Martha Mosse, and Alice Stride, ‘Introduction’, in Victoria Pepe, Rachel Holmes, Amy Annette, Alice Stride, and Martha Mosse (eds), I Call Myself a Feminist (London: Virago, 2015). 11
‘Well, I liked you . . .’: Interview with the author. 11
‘to put women’s liberation on the news stands’: Quoted in Marsha Rowe (ed.), Spare Rib Reader (London: Penguin, 1982). 12
‘There is the most urgent need . . .’: Ibid. 12
‘one day, when having a drink . . .’: Carmen Callil, ‘The stories of our lives’, Guardian, 26 April 2008. 12
‘Rosie and I sat on the floor of my flat . . .’: Carmen Callil, personal notes. 13
‘a strong, courageous, outspoken woman . . .’: Callil, ‘The stories of our lives’. 13
‘It was not enough to publish for ourselves’: Carmen Callil, ‘The future of feminist publishing’, The Bookseller, 1 March 1986. An edited version of a speech at the Women in Publishing conference, 1985. 13
‘It was as if an explosion had gone off . . .’: Val McDermid, ‘Letter: Val McDermid on the importance of Kate Millett, author of Sexual Politics’, Observer, 10 September 2017. 14
‘She bowled me over . . .’: Rosie Boycott, in ‘What Germaine Greer and The Female Eunuch mean to me’, Observer, 26 January 2014. 15
‘slipped to me like Samizdat . . .’: Nuala O’Faolain, ‘You’ve come a long way, baby’, Guardian, 13 September 2003. 15
‘in your most intimate organ—the brain’: A. L. Kennedy, ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’, A Point of View, BBC Radio 4, 22 September 2013. 15
‘Reading is a way of becoming . . .’: Ibid. 16
‘We must survive . . .’: Polly Toynbee, ‘Virago Press gives women writers a voice’, Guardian, 26 January 1981. 18
‘rules, censorship and silence . . .’: Callil, ‘The stories of our lives’. 18
‘The editor and publisher Ursula Owen . . .’: Simon Hattenstone, ‘Profile: Ursula Owen’, Guardian, 21 July 2001. 19
‘dismantling the grand narratives’: Virago podcast, 26 February 2018. 20
‘The sense of limitless freedom . . .’: Angela Car
ter, ‘Notes from the front line’, in Michelene Wandor (ed.), On Gender and Writing (London: Pandora, 1983). 21
Chapter TWO
‘The one thing that’s really memorable . . .’: Sabine Durrant, ‘How we met: Carmen Callil and Harriet Spicer’, Independent on Sunday, 23 May 1993. 23
‘Harriet was always very elegant . . .’: Ibid. 23
‘In our year with Quartet we had learned . . .’: Ursula Owen, ‘Feminist Publishing’, in Peter Owen (ed.), Publishing: The Future (London: Peter Owen, 1988) 24
‘Would you mind guaranteeing my overdraft . . .’: Virago: Changing the World One Page at a Time, BBC Four, 31 October 2016. 24
‘We were determined to reclaim a history . . .’: Owen, ‘Feminist Publishing’. 26
‘searching through libraries and coming, with astonishment . . .’: Carmen Callil, ‘The future of feminist publishing’, The Bookseller, 1 March 1986. An edited version of a speech at the Women in Publishing conference, 1985. 26
‘more famous than the books by men that inspired it’: Mark Bostridge, ‘Introduction’, Testament of Youth (London: Virago, 2018). 28
‘Virago was founded with two main aims . . .’: Callil, ‘The future of feminist publishing’. 28
‘It was in my blood and I loved the tangible object’: Interview with the author. 28
‘I loved the atmosphere . . .’: Interview with the author. 28
‘dethrone the myth of [inherent] femininity’: Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949; London: Penguin, 1972). 28
‘There are the people who think women . . .’: Polly Toynbee, ‘Virago Press gives women writers a voice’, Guardian, 26 January 1981. 29
‘a way of masking power’: Jo Freeman, ‘The Tyranny of Structurelessness’ (n.p., 1970). 32
‘She hired me and I started as her slave . . .’: Scarlett Sabet, ‘Really I was a reader’, Violet Book (October 2018). 34
‘no moral context’, ‘putting ideas into children’s heads’: See Jane Cousins Mills, ‘“Putting ideas into their heads”: advising the young’, Feminist Review, 28 (spring 1988). 37
‘another example of twentieth-century arrogance’: Robert Howarth, ‘Twentieth century arrogance’, Third Way (February 1980). 37
‘She is an ebullient energetic character . . .’: Toynbee, ‘Virago Press gives women writers a voice’. 39
‘there were cats galore . . .’: Durrant, ‘How we met’. 42
‘”It is only when women start to organize . . .”‘: From Sheila Rowbotham, Women, Resistance and Revolution (London: Vintage, 1974). 43
‘As with all publishers, books are our lifeblood . . .’: Virago Press catalogue, 1993. 45
Chapter THREE
‘a market-driven company, but . . .’: British Book News, 1990. 47
‘now and in the future patriarchal attitudes . . .’: Eva Figes, Patriarchal Attitudes (London: Faber & Faber, 1970). 48
‘with a series of books and position papers . . .’: From ‘Women’s liberation meets Miller-Mailer-Manson man’, in Gore Vidal, Homage to Daniel Shays: Collected Essays, 1952–1972 (New York: Vintage, 1973). 49
‘Those early days of feminism were serious days . . .’: Carmen Callil, ‘The stories of our lives’, Guardian, 26 April 2008. 49
‘the silent women whose voices have been denied us . . .’: Acceptance speech, National Book Award for Poetry, 1974. 54
‘the long process of making visible the experiences of women . . .’: ‘Conditions for work: the common world of women’, in Adrienne Rich, On Lies, Secrets and Silence (London: Virago, 1980). 54
‘When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility . . .’: ‘Women and honor: some notes on lying’, in ibid. 54
‘felt as though the top of my head was being attacked . . .’: Margaret Atwood, ‘Diving into the wreck’, New York Times, 30 December 1973. 54
she sent me a Christmas card: Reprinted with the permission of the Adrienne Rich Literary Estate. 56
‘Feminism begins but cannot end with the discovery . . .’: Rich, ‘Conditions for work’. 56
‘Woman as Other is such a familiar trope . . .’: Katha Pollitt, ‘Adrienne Rich’s news in verse’, New Yorker, 30 March 2012. 57
‘We cannot wait to speak until we are perfectly clear . . .’: ‘Split at the root’, in Adrienne Rich, Blood, Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979–1985 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986). 57
‘somewhat combative pacifist and co-operative anarchist’: Quoted in Alexandra Schwarz, ‘The art and activism of Grace Paley’, New Yorker, 1 May 2017. 57
‘When you write, you illuminate what’s hidden . . .’: Interview on Fresh Air, NPR, 1985. Quoted in ibid. 58
‘I wanted to write about women and children . . .’: Quoted in Jonathan Dee, Barbara Jones, and Larissa MacFarquhar, ‘Grace Paley, The art of fiction No. 131’, Paris Review, 124 (fall 1992). 58
‘It doesn’t preach . . .’: Schwartz, ‘The art and activism of Grace Paley’. 59
‘While we owe a great deal . . .’: Mishal Husain, The Skills: From First Job to Dream Job – What Every Woman Needs to Know (London: 4th Estate, 2018). 62
‘the ultimate effect upon the woman’s mental and emotional health . . .’: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975). 62
‘People in the movement were starting to say . . .’: Rachel Cooke, ‘US feminist Susan Brownmiller on why her groundbreaking book on rape is still relevant’, Observer, 18 February 2018. 62
‘We didn’t do book signings . . .’: Lynn Alderson, ‘Sisterwrite bookshop’, Lesbian History Group website, 8 December 2016, https://lesbianhistorygroup.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/sisterwrite-bookshop-lynn-alderson/. 64
Chapter FOUR
‘I wanted to celebrate women’s lives . . .’: Virago Modern Classics 40th: Tessa Hadley, Elizabeth Day, Donna Coonan, and Carmen Callil in Conversation, Foyles, 3 May 2018. 70
‘It’s not too much . . .’: Margaret Drabble, Virago leaflet. 71
‘Virago changed English reading habits for ever’: Philip Hensher, ‘Dead white male seeks publisher’, Independent, 21 July 2006. 71
‘Antonia White, a novelist wonderful to know . . .’: Virago Modern Classics 40th. 71
‘If one novel could tell the story of my life . . .’: Carmen Callil, ‘The stories of our lives’, Guardian, 26 April 2008. 71
‘would unseat some of my deepest assumptions as a reader’: Jonathan Coe, ‘My literary love affair’, Guardian, 6 October 2007. 72
‘It reminds you that we connect . . .’: Virago Modern Classics 40th. 72
‘like looking through someone’s LPs to see if they were okay’: Ibid. 73
‘It was the ’80s, the heyday of dreadful literary theory . . .’: Ibid. 73
‘I realised that many of the titles I loved . . .’: ‘Thirty Years of Virago Modern Classics’, Virago brochure, 2008. 73
‘I was reading for female experience’: Virago Modern Classics 40th. 73
‘To find the jacket was enthralling’: Virago: Changing the World One Page at a Time, BBC Four, 31 October 2016. 74
‘The biggest contribution came from writers’: Callil, ‘The stories of our lives’. 76
‘Carmen Callil persuaded Alfred Knopf . . .’: A. S. Byatt, ‘Willa Cather’, A Virago Keepsake to Celebrate Twenty Years of Publishing (London: Virago, 1993). 77
‘I have a note from her thanking . . .’: Rosamond Lehmann. reprinted with permission of her Literary Executor. 77
‘Anita Brookner and I would go for dinner with her . . .’: Virago Modern Classics 40th. 78
‘Afflicted as I was with three years’ study . . .’: Carmen Callil, ‘Virago reprints: redressing the balance’, Times Literary Supplement, 12 September 1980. 78
‘A c
onsiderable body of women novelists . . .’: Callil, ‘The stories of our lives’. 79
‘She also had a genius with language . . .’: Talk at Edinburgh Book Festival. Reprinted Harper’s Bazaar (April 2018). 81
‘stiletto sharpness and infinite kindness’: Sally Phipps, Molly Keane: A Life (London: Virago, 2017). 82
‘a tiny bombshell’: Ibid. 82
‘Thinking about you a lot . . .’: Molly Keane, reprinted with permission of her Estate. 82
‘Have married an Englishman . . .’: Reprinted in Elaine Dundy, Life Itself! (London: Virago, 2001). 85
‘people forget how many of the writers . . .’: Email to the author. 86
‘Lovers of literature of either sex . . .’: Anthony Burgess, ‘Pilgrimage’, Guardian, 9 December 1979. 86
‘I take the view that a small canvas . . .’: ‘Thirty Years of Virago Modern Classics’, Virago brochure, 2008. 87
Chapter FIVE
In 1975 in the UK: Women’s Research and Resources Centre, 1981. 92
‘Women’s studies comes out of research inspired . . .’: Bristol Women’s Study Group, Half the Sky: An Introduction to Women’s Studies (London: Virago, 1979). 93
‘By feminism we mean’ Lynn Alderson, ‘Sisterwrite bookshop’, Lesbian History Group website, 8 December 2016, https://lesbianhistorygroup.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/sisterwrite-bookshop-lynn-alderson/.feminist we mean both an awareness . . .’: Ibid. 93
A Bite of the Apple Page 23