The Bluestockings: A History of the First Women's Movement

One of the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2024A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceOne of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024An illuminating group portrait of the eighteenth-century women who dared to imagine an active life for themselves in both mind and spirit.In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman―if there were such a thing―would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society.In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women. Elizabeth Montagu established one of the most famous salons of the Bluestocking movement, with everyone from royalty to revolutionaries cla