Virago News

In the first of our Pride 2020 extracts, discover The Charioteer by Mary Renault. First published in 1953, The Charioteer is a tender, intelligent coming-of-age novel and a bold, unapologetic portrayal of homosexuality that stands with Gore Vidal’s The […]

During this unusual time, celebrate Pride from the comfort of your own home by discovering this carefully curated list of LGBTQIA+ reads. Here’s a selection of our books that centre of LGBTQIA+ themes, have LGBTQIA+ […]

    Virago Modern Classics Book Club JUNE 2020 A VIEW OF THE HARBOUR by Elizabeth Taylor This June our Book of the Month is A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor, an unforgettable […]

DAPHNE DU MAURIER (1907–89) was born in London, the daughter of the famous actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of George du Maurier, the author and artist. A voracious reader, she was from an […]

Read an extract from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Working as a lady’s companion, the orphaned heroine of Rebecca learns her place.  Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, […]

My family and I emigrated from Ukraine to Canada in 1997. My sister, twelve years old at the time, couldn’t wait to leave. Browsing my aunt’s German toy catalogues with their glossy tableaux of happy […]

Angela Carter (1940–1992) was born in Eastbourne and brought up in south Yorkshire. One of Britain’s most original and disturbing writers, she read English at Bristol University and wrote her first novel, Shadow Dance, in […]

This May would’ve marked Angela Carter’s 80th Birthday. To celebrate we are sharing snippets from her extraordinary career, including this extract from Nothing Sacred. ‘In the pursuit of magnificence, nothing is sacred,’ says Angela Carter, […]

This year’s theme for the UK’s Maternal Mental Health Awareness week is ‘Journey to Recovery’ – a phenomenon, as a psychotherapist, that I often have the privilege to be a part of. I meet many […]

  A world free for all!was the rallying cry at the end of the Second World War. Free, did they say? Not for women, and not yet. Both East and West were taken up for […]

In May of 1836, four enslaved women in Jamaica were brought before the Stipendiary Magistrate for refusing to work in the fields. As mothers of young children (one woman, Eliza Hall, had ten), they were […]

    Virago Modern Classics Book Club May 2020 SHADOW DANCE by Angela Carter This May our Book of the Month is a tribute to Angela Carter, in the month which marks her 80th birthday […]