Born to a life of wealth and privilege in turn-of-the-century Rhode Island, Emma Tremayne's life is all mapped out for her--including her engagement to the town's most eligible bachelor. Emma's sheltered world is shattered, however, when she discovers the horrifying working conditions in her fiance's textile mill. And when she encounters Shay McKenna, a brave Irish revolutionary, she learns what it will take to defy society's conventions, and experience a love she never thought possible.

“What this remarkable book does . . . is to remind us of that passion, that revolutionary fervor, that camaraderie, that persistence in the face of political defeat and personal despair so needed in our time as in theirs.” —Howard Zinn “Fascinating ...With marvelous clarity and depth, Candace Falk illuminates for us an Emma Goldman shaped by her time yet presaging in her life the situation and conflicts of women in our time.” —Tillie Olsen One of the most famous political activists of all time, Emma Goldman was also infamous for her radical anarchist views and her “scandalous” personal life. In public, Goldman was a firebrand, confidently agitating for labor reform, anarchism, birth control, and women’s independence. But behind closed doors she was more vulnerable, especially when it came to the love of her life. Love, Anarchy, & Emma Goldman is an account of Goldman’s legendary career as a political activist. But it is more than that—it is a biography that offers an intimate look at how Goldman’s passion for social reform dovetailed with her passion for one man: Chicago activist, hobo king, and red-light district gynecologist Ben Reitman. Candace Falk takes us into the heart of their tumultuous love affair, finding that even as Goldman lectured on free love, she confronted her own intense jealousy. As director of the Emma Goldman papers, Falk had access to over 40,000 writings by Goldman—including her private letters and notes—and she draws upon these archives to give us a rare insight into this brilliant, complex woman’s thoughts. The result is both a riveting love story and a primer on an exciting, explosive era in American politics and intellectual life.

Passions Between Women looks at stories of lesbian desires, acts and identities from the Restoration to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Far from being invisible, the figure of the woman who felt passion for women in this period was a subject of confusion and contradiction: she could be put in a freak show as a 'hermaphrodite', denounced as a 'tribade' or 'lesbian', revered as a 'romantic friend', jailed as a 'female husband' or gossiped about as a 'woman-lover', 'tommy' or 'Sapphist'. Through an examination of a wealth of new medical, legal and erotic source material, together with re-readings of classics of English literature, Emma Donoghue uncovers the astonishing range of lesbian and bisexual identities described in British texts between 1668 and 1801. Female pirates and spiritual mentors, chambermaids and queens, poets and prostitutes, country idylls and whipping clubs all take their place in an intriguing panorama of lesbian lives and loves. 'Controversial, erotic and radical, Emma Donoghue's lesbian voyage of exploration outlines an astonishing spectrum of gender rebellion which creates a new map of eighteenth-century sexual territories and identities.' Patricia Duncker

Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796) is a novel by English writer and feminist Mary Hays. Inspired by events from her own life, as well as by her acquaintance with radical political philosophers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Hays’s novel received mixed reviews and was controversial for its representation of female sexuality, adultery, infanticide, and suicide. Modern critics and readers, however, have recognized the novel as a groundbreaking work of feminist fiction. In a series of letters to her adopted son Augustus Harley, Emma Courtney reveals the tragic details of her life. Young and in love with Augustus’s father, Courtney dreamed of marrying him and starting a family. Despite their true connection, Harley is unable to marry—his continued income is only guaranteed, he claims, if he remains a bachelor. Meanwhile, a man named Mr. Montague promises Courtney a life of safety and financial stability if she will agree to marry him, which, after learning that Harley has secretly been married all along, she does. Heartbroken, Courtney settles for a life with her new husband, and raising her daughter becomes her only cause for passion. When she realizes the extent of Mr. Montague’s dishonesty, however, she struggles to reconcile her former sense of individuality with the life she has been forced to live. When Harley suddenly reappears, however, feelings from the past return that threaten to flood Courtney’s heart and overturn what stability she thought had been her own. Memoirs of Emma Courtney is an epistolary novel exploring themes of desire, inequality, and the love that transcends the values and bonds of society. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Mary Hays’s Memoirs of Emma Courtney is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

“It’s ‘Friends’ meets ‘Almost Famous’ meets the beach read you’ll be recommending all summer.” –TheSkimm From the author of the New York Times bestsellers All Adults Here and This Time Tomorrow, a smart, highly entertaining novel about a tight-knit group of friends from college— and what it means to finally grow up, well after adulthood has set in. Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch (of sexuality, independence, and the ineffable alchemy of cool) to their own offspring. Back in the band's heyday, Elizabeth put on a snarl over her Midwestern smile, Andrew let his unwashed hair grow past his chin, and Zoe was the lesbian all the straight women wanted to sleep with. Now nearing fifty, they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn, and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease. But the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adult lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose—about themselves, and about the famous fourth band member who soared and fell without them—can never be reclaimed. Straub packs wisdom and insight and humor together in a satisfying book about neighbors and nosiness, ambition and pleasure, the excitement of youth, the shock of middle age, and the fact that our passions—be they food, or friendship, or music—never go away, they just evolve and grow along with us.

In this deeply moving and life-affirming tale, a mother must nurture her five-year-old son through an unfathomable situation with only the power of their imagination and their boundless capacity to love. Written for the stage by Academy Award® nominee Emma Donoghue, this unique theatrical adaptation featuring songs and music by Kathryn Joseph and director Cora Bissett takes audiences on a richly emotional journey told through ingenious stagecraft, powerhouse performances, and heart-stopping storytelling. Room reaffirms our belief in humanity and the astounding resilience of the human spirit. This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the Broadway premiere in Spring 2023.

A contemporary novel about a girl whose high school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream leads her to new friends—and maybe even new love.