A Dirty, Filthy Book

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Brought to you by Penguin.

Sex and Scandal in the Victorian 'trial of the century'

June, 1877: the petite 29-year-old Annie Besant stands motionless before the 75-year-old Judge towering over her in the Palace of Westminster. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn is presiding over the scandalous 'trial of the century' where Annie Besant and her confidante Charles Bradlaugh have been charged with the unforgiveable crime of publishing and selling a guide to birth control. Charged with obscenity, she argued -- controversially and outrageously, for the time -- that it was a woman's right to be able to choose to have children. The riveting trial over freedom of speech and the rights of women captivated the British public, caused outrage across the grey Victorian establishment and helped transform Annie Besant into one of the most famous women in the Empire.

Drawing on unpublished archives, private papers and court-room transcripts, and an incredible cast of characters including Queen Victoria, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and JS Mill, A Dirty, Filthy Book tells a gripping story of double standards that will horrify and delight in equal measure. At its heart is one of the most fascinating women of Victorian society, a little-known pioneer who single-handedly refused to accept the role that the establishment assigned her. Annie's trial lit the flame of social change, free speech and women's rights that is still burning around the world almost 150 years later.

©2024 Michael Meyer (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • Makes the case for Annie Besant as a truly eminent Victorian, as brilliant and fearless as she was beautiful . . . [A] witty and entertaining account

    The Times, Book of the Week

  • Michael Meyer has mined the rich seams of history and woven together a fascinating and gripping narrative. Beautifully told, it has echoes for today. I don’t know how he does it

    Adam Hochschild, author of KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST

  • Annie Besant was a freethinker and a half – an indomitable woman who challenged many of the discriminatory views of her day and put all her energies into social change. A great read

    Prof. Helen Pankhurst CBE, Women's Rights Campaigner

  • Hugely entertaining, told with verve and humour, with a riveting court trial at its heart. A terrific study of the Victorian controversy and criminalisation of contraception and the dire consequences for women of confusing medicine with morals. At last, Annie Besant has found a champion equal to the task of doing justice to her crusading life and the significance of her achievements. Victorian patriarchy denied Besant her rightful place in political history: Michael Meyer has reinstated her, in all her glorious complexity, as the pioneering feminist changemaker in Britain’s history of morals, censorship and sex

    Rachel Holmes, author of SYLVIA PANKHURST and ELEANOR MARX

  • At a time when reproductive rights are being rolled back globally, as well as worryingly close to home, [Besant’s] story needs retelling until its message is set in stone

    Guardian

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