Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, Suffragette, Martyr

Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, Suffragette, Martyr

Jenkins, Lyndsey

Paperback

Biographies GeneralGeneral Gender StudiesGeneral Political Science

ISBN10: 1909269298
ISBN13: 9781909269293
Publisher: Silvertail Books
Published: Apr 5 2018
Pages: 312
Weight: 1.01
Height: 0.70 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

'Does full justice to the remarkable achievements of an unlikely martyr' Mail on Sunday

'A fascinating study of a handful of the potential motivations behind violent political acts through the balanced examination of a remarkable woman' All About History

Lady Constance Lytton (1869-1923) was the most unlikely of suffragettes. One of the elite, she was the daughter of a Viceroy of India and a lady in waiting to the Queen. She grew up in the family home of Knebworth and in embassies around the world. For forty years, she did nothing but devote herself to her family, denying herself the love of her life and possible careers as a musician or a reviewer. Then came a chance encounter with a suffragette. Constance was intrigued; witnessing Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst on trial convinced her of the urgent necessity of votes for women and she went to prison for the cause as gleefully as any child going on a school trip.
But, once jailed, Constance soon found that her name and her connections singled her out for unwelcome special treatment. By now, 1909, the suffragettes were hunger striking and the government had retaliated with force-feeding. The stories that began to leak out of bungled operations, of dirty tubes, of screams halfheard through brick walls, of straitjackets and handcuffs outraged the suffragettes.
Constance decided on her most radical step yet: to go to prison in disguise. Taking the name Jane Warton, she cut her hair, put on glasses and ugly clothes and got herself arrested in Liverpool. Once in prison, she was force-fed eight times before her identity was discovered and she was released. Her case became a cause célèbre, with debate raging in The Times and questions being asked in the House of Commons. Lady Constance Lytton became an inspiration and, in the end, a martyr. In this extraordinary new biography, Lyndsey Jenkins reveals for the first time the fascinating story of the woman who abandoned a life of privilege to fight for women s rights.

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