Jane Jordan

Josephine Butler

Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler

Ingrid Sharp

This five volume set deals in detail with Josephine Butler's campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts in Britain and the Colonies. At present, access to Butler's work is restricted as a number of relevant anthologies are out of print. The bulk of these can only be read in specialist libraries and the original copies are becoming increasingly fragile after a century of use. This edited collection makes her writing accessible once again, setting it in an appropriate historical context. In addition to Butler's own work, the thematically ordered volumes include related texts which are important for understanding her campaign. This allows the reader to position Josephine Butler in relation to her opponents and to follow the response to her activities. All the texts are complete and reproduced in facsimile - there are pamphlets, books, media responses to Butler's activities, letters to The Times, articles from The Lancet, Pall Mall Gazette, The Shield and The Dawn as well as private letters both to and from Butler. The set is introduced through a substantial essay by Jane Jordan, one of the leading international scholars on Butler's life and works, and each volume contains a short introduction by the editors which contextualises the selections. Butler writes clearly and vividly, combining impeccable logic with passionate commitment. She does not soften her message to protect the sensibilities of her audience. She is uncompromising in her analysis, determined to 'set a floodlight on your doings' as she told a stunned royal commission in 1871. Josephine Butler and the Prostitution Campaigns demonstrates the great importance of this fascinating campaigner's work.

Josephine Butler and the Prostitution Campaigns: The constitution violated

Meg Jensen

In our age, self-publishing, self-broadcasting, and telling stories about our own lives and the lives of others are all-pervasive. This is also the age of the witness, the age of testimony in which first-hand accounts, personal experience, life change and evolution are valued, for good or ill, over distanced reflection. What are we to make of all this telling of lives? The essays collected in Life Writing: The Spirit of the Age and the State of the Art from writers and academics associated with the Centre for Life Narrative Studies at Kingston University in London, begin to address this very question, and in doing so demonstrate the fluidity and diversity of life writing itself. The remit of the Centre for Life Narratives is to rise to the challenge poised to writers, teachers and researchers alike by this very fluidity and diversity in our discipline and is exemplified here with contributions from academics, curators, editors and biographers, including Neal Ascherson,Victoria Glendinning, Professor Kathryn Hughes, Hanif Kureishi, Blake Morrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This collection of essays from CLN offers the reader our founding contribution to the debates that surround this era-defining genre and as such presents both the state of the art and the spirit of our age.

The Spirit of the Age and the State of the Art

Life Writing

In her debut novel, Ravens Deep, Jane Jordan brought together two unforgettable characters, Madeline Shaw and Darius Chamberlayne. Their connection defied the boundaries of time and combined vampire superstition with a complex and modern love story.Blood and Ashes is a vivid and powerful follow-up to Ravens Deep. A story that is layered in myth and vampire culture, and set amongst London’s hidden world and the beautiful scenery of Exmoor. A mixture of love, revenge and horror that takes the reader on an unexpected journey through the lives of three enigmatic immortals.Madeline’s story began years before, but now she has been given the kiss of death, the new chapter begins. With Darius to guide her, it would seem that immortality might be bearable, but driven by a force she doesn’t understand, she carelessly disregards Darius’ warnings and succumbs to her treacherous instinct. An unexpected turn of events leads her to London’s underground tunnels. There darkness rules, and terror awaits anyone that is lured to these hidden depths.Madeline’s will to survive is tested to the limit, but she risks everything to escape and return to her beloved Darius and to Ravens Deep. Madeline’s course of action leads to an unfolding chain of events that will have disastrous and heartbreaking consequences.

Jane Jordan

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