I loved Virago books, especially their classics section. They were books for women by women; it almost seemed subversive to me in my teens. Dame Carmen Callil, who has died aged 84, set up Virago books in 1972. I was about 16 or 17 when the first book was published, and my goodness, they spoke to me. I absolutely adored them. In particular I loved the green livery of the Classics series, and the fact that they were overtly feminist. Somehow it made me feel I’d joined a club.
Each volume carried on its second page the declaration that “Virago is a feminist publishing company”, (that was so exciting back in the seventies!) followed by a quotation from Sheila Rowbotham’s Women, Resistance and Revolution:
It is only when women start to organise in large numbers that we become a political force, and begin to move towards the possibility of a truly democratic society.”
R.I.P. Dame Callil 2022
Carmen Callil died in October 2022, and her obituaries were many and fulsome. She said the idea for creating Virago came to her like ‘the switching on of a lightbulb‘. Her mission was to promote books to the (then) 52% of the population who were not well served by traditional publishing, women. She forged a formidable company with an amazing name – Virago! She and the journalist Rosie Boycott saw the word Virago – meaning an heroic and warlike woman – in a book about goddesses. Seems appropriate.
The resulting venture radically expanded the published range of writing by women and transformed the role of women in publishing itself. Women still have issues getting published that men don’t face but back then it was even more difficult. Read Why Still So Few Women in TV?
Saturday Job and Book Buying
I’ve become a tad nostalgic reading the obituaries (check this one out from the Guardian). The world seemed so full of promise for women back then. I really thought we would have had full equality by my sixties. I haven’t lost hope, but I have lost hope of seeing it in my lifetime. At 17/18 I had a Saturday job at the Army and Navy stores in Bromley South.
During the holidays I worked full time and got paid something like £12 a week. (It was originally only £9 but then I discovered the boys were getting paid more and marched off to HR to demand why. I was told ‘because they are boys‘. I swiftly demolished that argument and we girls all got the same pay.)
Pay Packets And Actual Bookshops
I still remember the joy of actually holding those notes in my hand. To this day I love having a purse with actual cash in. It reminds me of that heady feeling of independence. As a working class lass I’d always been a bit intimidated by bookshops (they definitely weren’t as customer friendly as they are now). All my first books came from jumble (thrift) sales. I managed to get the complete collection of Enid Blyton in hardback. I wish I’d kept them…
However, emboldened by money in my purse, I embarked on a frenzy of book buying. And so began a love affair with owning books.I began with Graeme Greene for some reason, and set myself the target of reading everything that he wrote. Then I saw Virago. My first book from Virago was ‘Frost in May’ by Antonia White. I still have it. And I still have all the Graham Greene’s, too.
Difficult Women
By all accounts Carmen Callil was a ‘difficult woman’. Well, I applaud all the difficult women out there trying to change the world. Thank heavens for difficult women. Lang may their lums reek!
How many Virago’s in your collection?
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Posted on October 20th, 2022 by Jane
