Rose Collis Libri

Tells the story of the extraordinary life of the actress Coral Browne, who is remembered for her performances, her glamour, her liberated attitude to sex and her often-savage wit.

PORTRAITS TO THE WALL is a celebration of lesbian lives hitherto concealed by history. It is a study of powerful and swashbuckling heroines, who can put their more famous male counterparts to shame. Rose Collis rediscovers the lives and loves, consorts and concerns, passions and politics of a diverse range of women from the long-suffering Queen Anne and the eccentric composter and suffragist Ethel Smyth, who once spent two months in Holloway Prison for throwing a brick through a Cabinet Minister's window, to the formidable Eve Balfour, founder of the Soil Association and nicknamed the 'Compost Queen' and Selma Lagerlof, the first woman ever to win the Novel Prize for Literature (in 1909). Irresistible and garrulous, PORTRAITS TO THE WALL provides fascinating insights into the lives of a once-scandalous group of women. It exposes a culture and lifestyle which has previously received little, or no, documentation. Rose Collis is a writer and journalist living in London. Her work has appeared in The Independent, Time Out, Gay Times and Tribune. She is currently working on a biography of media personality Nancy Spain to be published by Cassell in 1995.

Focusing on British and European women, this is an accessible study of lesbian history since the 17th century. Each chapter documents and examines a woman's life and work, or the nature of a particular partnership. Some of the women featured are famous, such as Greta Garbo, Ethel Smyth, Eve Balfour and Queen Anne, while others have been forgotten or undocumented. Collis's study raises many profound and seminal issues including the visibility of lesbians in different social contexts, the influence of social status and background on their ability to be open about their sexuality, the importance of sexuality to contemporary women, and the existence and creation of role models.

Aus dem Vorwort der Autorin: „1993 rief mich ein Journalistin an. Sie hatte zu ihrer Überraschung gehört, daß ich ein ganzes Buch über berühmte Lesben schrieb, denn ihr fielen außer Gertrude Stein, Vita Sackville-West und Sappho partout keine weiteren ein. Ich ratterte also meine Liste von Frauen herunter, und sie reagierte auf jeden Namen mit der Frage “Die auch?". Verwunderlich ist das nicht, denn Frauen kommen in der Geschichtsschreibung noch immer nur spärlich vor, und Lesben sind bislang fast unsichtbar geblieben - verschleierte Porträts, die niemand betrachten konnte. Rose Collis hat zehn dieser Porträts enthüllt und biographisch gründlich beleuchtet. Seitenanfang