Marchmont is a mainly residential area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It lies roughly one mile to the south of the Old Town, separated from it by The Meadows and Bruntsfield Links. To the west it is bounded by Bruntsfield; to the south-southwest by Greenhill and then Morningside; to the south-southeast by The Grange; and to the east by Sciennes.
Sarah Ann Waters is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.
Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian playwright, literary historian, novelist, and screenwriter. Her 2010 novel Room was a finalist for the Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Donoghue's 1995 novel Hood won the Stonewall Book Award and Slammerkin (2000) won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards. Room was adapted by Donoghue into a film of the same name. For this, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Quentin Durward is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, first published in 1823. The story concerns a Scottish archer in the service of the French King Louis XI (1423–1483) who plays a prominent part in the narrative.
Dame Carmen Thérèse Callil, was an Australian publisher, writer and critic who spent most of her career in the United Kingdom. She founded Virago Press in 1973 and received the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature in 2017. She has been described by Gail Rebuck as "the most extraordinary publisher of her generation".
Natasha Walter is a British feminist writer and human rights activist. She is the author of a novel, A Quiet Life (2016), three works of non-fiction: Before the Light Fades: a memoir of grief and resistance, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, and The New Feminism. She is also the founder of the charity Women for Refugee Women.
Linda Grant is an English novelist and journalist.
Grace Nichols FRSL is a Guyanese poet who moved to Britain in 1977, before which she worked as a teacher and journalist in Guyana. Her first collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman (1983), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. In December 2021, she was announced as winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Antonia White was a British writer and translator, known primarily for Frost in May, a semi-autobiographical novel set in a convent school. It was the first book reissued by Virago Press in 1978, as part of their Modern Classics series of books by previously neglected women authors.
Michèle Brigitte Roberts FRSL is a British writer, novelist and poet. She is the daughter of a French Catholic teacher mother and English Protestant father, and has dual UK–France nationality.
Harriett Sarah Gilbert is an English writer, academic and broadcaster, particularly of arts and book programmes on the BBC World Service. She is the daughter of the writer Michael Gilbert. Besides World Book Club on the World Service, she also presents A Good Read on BBC Radio 4. Before the programme was cancelled, she also presented the BBC World Service programme The Strand.
Sir Tim Waterstone is a British bookseller, businessman and author. He is the founder of Waterstones, the United Kingdom-based bookselling retail chain, the largest in Europe.
Union Street is the first novel by English author Pat Barker, published by Virago Press in 1982. It describes the lives of seven working-class women living on Union Street and how they respond to the changes brought about by deindustrialisation. It is set in northeastern England during the 1970s. The 1990 movie Stanley & Iris is a loose adaptation of the novel.
Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith was an English writer and active member of the Bright Young Things.
Alison Fell is a Scottish poet and novelist with a particular interest in women's roles and political victims. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies. Her children's books also pass on social messages.
The Lost Man Booker Prize was a special edition of the Man Booker Prize awarded by a public vote in 2010 to a novel from 1970 as the books published in 1970 were not eligible for the Man Booker Prize due to a rules alteration; until 1970 the prize was awarded to books published in the previous year, while from 1971 onwards it was awarded to books published the same year as the award. The prize was won by J. G. Farrell for Troubles.
Jill Dawson is an English poet and novelist who grew up in Durham, England. She began publishing her poems in pamphlets and small magazines. Her first book, Trick of the Light, was published in 1996. She was the British Council Writing Fellow at Amherst College for 1997. She lives in the Fens of Cambridgeshire.
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a novel by Elizabeth Taylor. Published in 1971, it was her eleventh novel. It was shortlisted for the 1971 Booker Prize. The novel was adapted for television in 1973 and was the basis for a 2005 film, also called Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.
The Adventures of Rivella (1714) is the last novel written by eighteenth century English author Delarivier Manley. The work is a semi-autobiographical account of Manley's life seen through the fictional character of Rivella. Delarivier Manley's final novel, which was later edited and published by Edmund Curll, is centred around her life before, during, and after her treacherous marriage. The events and incidents incurred by the fictional character Rivella are narrated to the reader through a conversational dialogue between two male protagonists, being Sir Lovemore and Sir D'Aumont. The narrative tells that the young chevalier D'Aumont has left France in search of sexual partnership with Rivella and instead finds the rejected lover, Sir Charles Lovemore who does not assist the Frenchman in arranging contact with Rivella, but tells her life story instead, both as it relates in public gossip and her personal writings.
Chioma Okereke is a Nigerian-born poet, author and short story writer. Her debut novel, Bitter Leaf (2010), was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize – Africa Best First Book 2011.
