cover image E. Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical

E. Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical

Patricia W. Romero. Yale University Press, $47 (334pp) ISBN 978-0-300-03691-6

Although Pankhurst (1882-1960) may not have had quite the historical significance she claimed for herself in her autobiographical books ( The Suffragette, etc.), she was a remarkable womana charismatic leader, a born fighter and, as Romero calls her in this lucid, well-documented biography, a ""multi-sided radical publicist'' whose career was virtually synonymous with English social protest in her time. She was the daughter of famed suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst; lover of Keir Hardy, founder of the Labour Party; friend of Bertrand Russell and Bernard Shaw; and she treated Lenin as an equal. She campaigned relentlessly for women's suffrage, the rights of unmarried mothers, pacifism, communism and, finally and somewhat incongruously, the cause of Emperor Haile Selassie. As Romero's interviews with some who knew her attest, she was a powerful figure about whom it was impossible to feel neutral. Romero is a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins University. Photos. (April)