This book about the pioneering woman Annie Besant should have been riveting. Unfortunately I didn’t find it so, it was often not enough about Annie, but her partner, and others, such as Dickens. Why? It digressed too much.
The chapters which were about Annie, and the prologue/ introduction contained such large information dump passages, that it became stodgy and indigestible for me.
It was undoubtedly forensically researched, but that does not make it easily readable.
A 2.5 rounded up for me.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

This is a non-fiction book that reads like fiction. This account of the trial of Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, two remarkable Victorians who were way ahead of their time, for the publication of a pamphlet on contraception. Without any legal training, Annie Besant represented herself in the trial, and the transcripts showed her to be an intelligent and eloquent orator. As well as covering the background of Besant and Bradlaugh, the book explores Victorian attitudes towards sex, marriage and the role of women and the story’s timeline also features excerpts from Queen Victoria’s diaries and correspondence to good effect. Annie Besant seems to have gone on to have an interesting life beyond this, with more than enough material for several more books about her life. This was a gripping legal drama, which left me feeling both educated and entertained.

With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

I had heard of Annie Besant through her connections to Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy but I was not aware of the incredible life she had led and the risks she had taken. A truly amazing woman who should be lauded with the Pankhurts and Fawcetts. She stood trial with Charles Bradlaugh on the crime of publishing a book on female contraception. This was 1877 and she defended herself.

Annie’s life choices seem astonishing when set against the time that she lived. She left her husband and children, she travelled the world - especially India - and she stood beside the exploited workers in Bryant and May.

The young, mostly female workers were fined 3 pence for having dirty feet and for talking. If they put a burnt match on a bench it cost them a shilling penalty - equal to 18 hours of labour. One girl was fined a shilling for jamming a cutting machine to save her hand. One of the foremen (who also included Karl Marx’s illegitimate son - there’s irony) got angry with her screaming "Never mind your fingers".

Rejected for an education in Britain, Annie started a university in India with a residential girls’ school which subsequently became Banaras Hindu University. The university granted her an honorary doctorate and she was known forever as Dr Besant. When she died in 1933 Mahatma Ghandi was among those sending condolences.

A fascinating look at a fascinating life and should be widely read.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley

Annie Besant and her confidant Charles Bradlaugh are on trial for the sordid crime of publishing and selling a birth control pamphlet. Remarkably – forty-five years before the first woman will be admitted to the English bar – Annie is defending herself. Before Britain’s highest judge she declares it is a woman’s right to choose when, and if, to have children. At a time when women were legally and socially subservient to men, Annie’s defiant voice was a sensation. The riveting trial scandalised newspapers, captivated the British public and sparked a debate over morals, censorship and sex.

This is a very readable book. Well written and researched. There is also an underlying humour that works well and makes a dry subject interesting. Like most, I suppose, I had never heard of Annie Besant before and always linked Marie Stopes with birth control and its education so this was a very informative read.

A keen examination of a trial which, though virtually unknown today, had an impact on family planning and birth control that resonates into our own time.

this is a fascinating book about a woman who changed Victorian society for the good. Annie Besant with Charles Bradlaugh recognised the need for simple family planning information and challenged the power of the church and the medical profession to circulate the essential facts in a cheaply sold book. This factual story is well told with a good pace and an appropriate level of detail. Annie defending herself in court is well described and engaging, her persecution and suffering for not staying silent is clearly drawn. I thoroughly recommend this book.

An intriguing and appealing biography of an unassuming feminist trailblazer in Victorian London. The historical detail was conscientiously researched with great attention to detail. Well written and a great education piece. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Annie Besant and her close friend Charles Bradlaugh are put on trial in 1877 for publishing 'a dirty, filthy book': a pamphlet written by Charlesk Knowlton concerning birth control and contraceptives. Fighting for a free press and more significantly, women's right to choose and control when they had children, Besant made history for defending herself forty-five years before Ivy Williams became the first woman called to the bar.

This was highly readable and Meyer's voice and humour shine through clearly. I had never heard of Annie Besant before and was intrigued to learn of her social activism. At a time when the age of consent was thirteen, Besant's advocacy for law reform on marital rape, informed sexual education and contraceptives were considered obscene and immoral. Having been barred from publishing Knowlton's 'Fruits of Philosophy', Besant took it upon herself to write and publish her own book on birth control. She advocated for the eight-hour workday and state0funded streetlighting, and was the public face for the Match Girls' Strike, one of the earliest industrial actions in British history and the largest undertaken by women.

Meyer's rendering of the court case, Besant's life up to, during, and after, were highly engaging and he balanced the inclusion of her personal life extremely well against her more public actions and status. I am very glad to have read this and would definitely be interested in reading more from Meyer in the future.

This is a biography of an extraordinary woman. I tend to read fiction, but there were parts of this well-written biographical account that read like a novel. The authors research and integration of primary sources 9like journals and court transcripts) added to the intrigue and interest. I love a book that is set in London (the best city in the world) and the descriptions of Victorian life were fascinating. (Although I am incredibly glad I was not a woman at the time!)
it was a long read, but accessible and incredibly interesting. It was certainly worthwhile. I am not going to forget what Annie Besant did. She was clearly an extraordinary woman and I would like to thank her, as the early feminism and socialist values she fought for have clearly made a difference to this day. I would love to see a film of TV series about her life. I can particularly envisage the court room scenes. (Besant was prosecuted for obscenity due to the publication of a pamphlet about contraception.)

I so wanted to love this book and then were aspects that I really did. Annie is a fantastic woman, and her story should be known. What she did for feminism was absolutely amazing. However, there was far too much extraneous information contained within this book that was just not necessary. I didn't want to hear so much about Charles Bradlaugh, I didn't want to hear so much about Dickens, and I didn't want to hear so much about Queen Victoria's Diaries. I wanted the details around Annie! She was the most fascinating subject, and I felt that she was pushed to the side in her own biography.

For this reason, I give 2.5 stars - it reads more like an academic essay, expetly reserched and written for this audience, sure, but therefore inaccessible to some, and I feel this story should be heard by all.

Thank you very much to NetGalley for this eARC in extrange for an honest review.

This is a well researched biography of Annie Besant. She is a very interesting character and the book goes into a lot of detail about her life, interests, campaigns etc. There is a lot of extraneous detail, some of which I felt was unnecessary - did we really need so many mentions of Dickens's novels? And what was going on in the wider world? Also I was not expecting an unproofed copy. I highlighted over 80 incidences in the actual that should have been picked up during proofreading and copyediting. I did not read the acknowledgments or footnotes. I do hope that these errors are corrected before the final edition goes to print or ebook publication.

A very interesting biography of an incredible woman who was many decades ahead of her time. I had not heard of Annie Besant but she should be a name on everyone’s lips, a Victorian campaigning for birth control and womens rights. An impassioned account.

I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author, the publisher and Net Galley.

I learned so much reading this book, it was a real pleasure. I was aware of some events and people referenced in this book such as the match girls strike. However much of this I hadn’t heard of and that surprises me now seeing how prolific Annie Besant’s influence was.

This book tells Annie Besant’s story alongside that of Charles Bradlaugh and a significant trial they went through after publishing a guide to birth control during Queen Victoria’s reign. Something that caused great scandal but was in demand from many people who couldn’t support more children.

Annie was an inspiring social reformer and did so much through her newspaper work and campaigning to help others who were caused much suffering through the injustices of Victorian Society and the expansion of the empire.

This was fascinating. It did dip a bit in the middle but the beginning and end were brilliant. Annie sacrificed so much in the service of social justice and others. She was an absolute warrior in defence of her fellow humans. This is non-fiction but it’s still a thrilling read full of intrigue, shocks and scandals.

Glad to have read this, thoroughly educational and enjoyable.

A wonderful book. I knew about Annie Bessant and her work with the matchstick girls and that was about it. How glad am I to have found out more, a lot more and to find out that the matchstick girls were a fairly small part of her life.
I am amazed at the detail included in this book. The bibliography is testament to the amount of research done and that is impressive. The title of the book does not give justice to the work and I don't think reflects the content. I have learnt so much and enjoyed the journey, possibly I'm a bit shocked to learn about what it was like in these Victorian times. I would encourage anyone to read it, who enjoys history and you may be surprised at the bigger picture.

A Dirty, Filthy Book is an engaging biography of Victorian reformer Annie Besant. It seems incredible that I hadn't heard of her before, when she played a pioneering role in advocating for women's rights.

Meyer clearly cares about his subject, and his depiction of Besant's life is meticulously researched and wonderfully contextualised in Victorian London. His coverage of the trial is particularly compelling, capturing Annie's courage and charisma through her own words.

The structure is perhaps a little uneven - while much time is spent on the trial and Besant's relationship with Bradlaugh, I would've loved a little more depth on her work in the East End and on the Bryant & May matchgirls' strike to balance it out.

Besant was clearly a fascinating and complex personality, and A Dirty, Filthy Book reasserts her rightful place in popular history.

No doubt a worthy subject, I'm afraid I gave up with this half way through. It's a shame as I expect Mrs Besant was a far more interesting character than the rather stodgy writing portrayed. Rather dull to be honest

Biography of the fascinating 19th century socialist, feminist theosophist Annie Besant

My awareness of Besant was of her later incarnation as a theosophist, and I never realised she had had such an extraordinarily brave earlier history as an outspoken feminist and, later, Fabian. She defended herself with incisive intelligence and oratorical skills, when she was brought to trial for publishing a book which taught women how to take control of their own fertility. She had left a disastrous marriage to a bullying clergyman, and was to lose custody of her daughter. She also supported Home Rule movements in Ireland and India.

Meyer’s book is lively and well written, and uses speeches and writing from court transcripts and journals. The only reason I have dropped a star is that the decision to contrast Besant’s important writing with the rather trivial journals of Queen Victoria’s daily doings, whilst stark and interesting enough initially, did drag a little.

The point was clearly made, showing which woman was the most radical, influential person in the cause of a fairer society and particularly in empowering women. The inevitable repetition of the dull by contrast over and again excerpts from the Queen’s journals dragged a little

I requested this book because Annie Besant was one of the founders of my old school in Colombo (Musaeus College)- I figured it had to be the same woman, there couldn't have been two Annie Besants who were active in women's rights and education at that time.

This book is fascinating. I had no idea quite how much Dr Besant did and how much it cost her in her personal life. It seems that there isn't an awful lot of original source material around about her early life - but the author uses a lot of background to fill in context instead.

An important book about an important figure all but forgotten about in history.

Huge thanks to net galley for my copy. 3.5/5

This is the most fascinating true story you’ve never heard of!

Petite, pious Annie Besant is a clergyman’s wife and mother of two in Victorian London. That is until her eyes are opened to the plight of women, the poor and Britain’s colonies.

The most interesting part of the book details Besant and close friend and “work husband” Charles Bradlaugh’s obscenity trial for publishing a pamphlet on contraception in the notoriously prudish - yet strangely fecund! - 1800s London. Besant defends herself with eloquence and skill in a time when women belonged either to their father or husband.

The book loses a little steam as she parts from Bradlaugh and becomes interested in a seemingly endless range of causes, but this pioneering feminist is a remarkable woman and Meyer vividly brings her world to life.

Before reading this book I'd never heard of Annie Beasant. This is an important piece of history about one woman's fight to publish information about contraception and a woman's rights over her own body. Impeccably researched abd written this us a simply brilliant book.