Rebel Crossings by Sheila Rowbotham (Verso, £25)
In the heady days of 1880s nonconformity two middle-class renegades, Miriam Daniell and Helena Born, forged an intense friendship. Together with their lovers, union militant Robert Nicol and craftsman anarchist William Bailie, they immersed themselves in socialism, radical literature and labour organising before migrating to America following dreams of greater liberty and equality. Inspired by them, Fabian new woman novelist Gertrude Dix followed their transatlantic slip-stream, joining the group and later becoming Robert’s partner in California.
Rowbotham’s historical cast is completed by progressive Bostonian Helen Tufts. From an allegiance sparked by political solidarity, Tufts emerges as Helen Born’s “heart companion.” Posthumously, she edits Helen’s work and memorialises her life, as well as marrying the bereaved William Bailie, with whom Helen had formed a free-love union.
Rowbotham meticulously constructs a delightful and richly flavoured history of “six puzzled idealists” trying to work out their own personal and political consciousness and intricate contradictions “emerging dynamically through their relationships with one another.”
Deftly teasing out these interleaved histories of a group of rebel spirits crossing spiritual and political boundaries, Rowbotham takes us on a journey through early socialism and provides a vivid and energetic account of the sexual and textual transmission of radical ideas back and forth across the Atlantic.
In the heady days of 1880s nonconformity two middle-class renegades, Miriam Daniell and Helena Born, forged an intense friendship. Together with their lovers, union militant Robert Nicol and craftsman anarchist William Bailie, they immersed themselves in socialism, radical literature and labour organising before migrating to America following dreams of greater liberty and equality. Inspired by them, Fabian new woman novelist Gertrude Dix followed their transatlantic slip-stream, joining the group and later becoming Robert’s partner in California.
Rowbotham’s historical cast is completed by progressive Bostonian Helen Tufts. From an allegiance sparked by political solidarity, Tufts emerges as Helen Born’s “heart companion.” Posthumously, she edits Helen’s work and memorialises her life, as well as marrying the bereaved William Bailie, with whom Helen had formed a free-love union.
Rowbotham meticulously constructs a delightful and richly flavoured history of “six puzzled idealists” trying to work out their own personal and political consciousness and intricate contradictions “emerging dynamically through their relationships with one another.”
Deftly teasing out these interleaved histories of a group of rebel spirits crossing spiritual and political boundaries, Rowbotham takes us on a journey through early socialism and provides a vivid and energetic account of the sexual and textual transmission of radical ideas back and forth across the Atlantic.
