Adapted from a novel by the radical feminist poet and author Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, this compelling, multilayered, and sumptuously designed dramatic romance plays out against the starkly observed realities of what it was to grow up female in prewar industrial Britain
When the Lancashire cotton mill that employs them burns to the ground, sisters Rachel and Hester Martin are each forced to find their own way to survive in the harsh realities of prewar industrial Britain. The contrasting paths they take in their quest for domestic autonomy form a subtly strident allegory of the all-but-insurmountable barriers of class and gender that then enslaved half the population. Part compelling narrative epic, part fiery Marxist-feminist polemic, this faithful, sumptuous, and revelatory adaptation by the award-winning Rickard Sisters reclaims a lost classic by holding it up as a mirror to our own hard times, and as a gloriously flaming beacon to future communities to offer strength, hope, and dignity.
Praise
"Many truths apply to exploitation as much now as then... An author who still has something to say has been proudly restored to topicality by Scarlett and Sophie Rickard."
—The Slings & Arrows
"Righteously strident, passionately polemical and powerfully enraging, engaging, this never-more-timely tale of the eternal injustice and biologically apologist is superbly readable, dramatically enticing and should be compulsory viewing for all – as long as we don’t force anyone…"
—Now Read This!
