Virago is a British publisher of women's writing and books on

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

topics. Started and run by women in the 1970s and bolstered by the success of the

Women's Liberation Movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resulted in g ...

(WLM), Virago has been credited as one of several British feminist presses that helped address inequitable gender dynamics in publishing. Unlike alternative,

anti-capitalist Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and Political movement, movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists seek to combat the worst effects of capitalism and to eventually replace capitalism ...

publishing projects and political pamphlets coming out of feminist collectives and socialist circles, Virago branded itself as a commercial alternative to the male-dominated publishing industry and sought to compete with mainstream international presses.Murray, Simone. ''Mixed Media: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics'',

Pluto Press Pluto Press is a British independent book publisher based in London, founded in 1969. Pluto Press states that it publishes "radical, left‐wing non‐fiction books", and is anti-capitalist and internationalist. It belongs to The Internat ...

, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central.

History

Virago was founded in 1973 by Carmen Callil, primarily to publish books by

women writers Women have made significant contributions to literature since the earliest written texts. Women have been at the forefront of textual communication since early civilizations. History Among the first known female writers is Enheduanna; she is al ...

. It was originally known as Spare Rib Books, sharing a name with the most famous magazine of the British

women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resulted in g ...

second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred ...

. The first issue of ''

Spare Rib ''Spare Rib'' was a second-wave feminist magazine, founded in 1972 in the United Kingdom, that emerged from the counterculture of the late 1960s as a consequence of meetings involving, among others, Rosie Boycott and Marsha Rowe. ''Spare Rib'' ...

'' magazine, whose founders included

Rosie Boycott Rosel Marie "Rosie" Boycott, Baroness Boycott (born 13 May 1951) is a British journalist and feminist. Early life The daughter of Major Charles Boycott and Betty Le Sueur Boycott, Rosel Marie "Rosie" Boycott was born in Saint Helier, Jersey. S ...

and Marsha Rowe, was published in June 1972. From the start, Virago published two sorts of books: original works, and out-of-print books by neglected female writers. The latter were reissued under the "Modern Classics" insignia, which launched in 1978 with ''

Frost in May ''Frost in May'' is a 1933 novel by the British author Antonia White that was reissued in 1978 as the first book in Virago Press's Modern Classics series of books by neglected women authors. Background ''Frost in May'', first published in 1933 ...

'', a novel by the British author

Antonia White Antonia White (born Eirene Adeline Botting; 31 March 1899 – 10 April 1980) 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 Vira ...

originally published in 1933. The Virago list also contains works with feminist themes by male authors, such as

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

. Valentine Cunningham has praised Virago for trawling "most impressively and fruitfully in the novel catalogues" of the 1930s for women's fiction to reprint. In 1982, Virago became a

wholly owned subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...

of the Chatto, Virago,

Bodley Head The Bodley Head is an English book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1887 by John Lane and Elkin Mathews, The Bodley Head existed as an independent entity or as part of multiple consortia until it was acquired by Random ...

, and

Cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...

Group (CVBC), but in 1987 Callil, Lennie Goodings, Ursula Owen,

Alexandra Pringle Alexandra Pringle, Hon FRSL (born 1953), is a British publisher. A founding director of Virago Press, she has been editor-in-chief of Bloomsbury Publishing since 2000. Biography Of Scottish descent and kinsmen of the Pringle baronets of Stich ...

, and

Harriet Spicer Harriet Greville Spicer (born 24 April 1950) is co-founder of Working Edge, which provides work coaching and mentoring in London, and is a governor of the London School of Economics. She lived in Chelsea prior to attending Lillsden School for G ...

put together a

management buy-out A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or High-net-worth individual, individual. Management- and/or leveraged buyouts bec ...

from CVBC, then owned by

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

, USA. The buy-out was financed by Rothschild Ventures and Robert Gavron. Random House UK kept a ten percent stake in the company, and continued to handle sales and distribution. In 1993, Rothschild Ventures sold their shares to the directors and Gavron, who thus became the largest single shareholder. After a downturn in the market forced a reduction in activity, the board decided to sell the company to

Little, Brown Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries, it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emil ...

, of which Virago became an

imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

in 1996 (with Lennie Goodings as publisher and Sally Abbey as senior editor). The sale to Little, Brown, a large company owned by the telecommunications giant

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City. It was established as Time Warne ...

, was met with negative publicity and raised questions about the future of feminist publishing houses. In 2006, Little, Brown, Virago's parent company, became part of publishing group

Hachette Livre Hachette Livre S.A. (; simply known as Hachette) is a French publishing, publishing group that was based in Paris. It was founded in 1826 by Louis Hachette as Brédif which later became successively L. Hachette et Compagnie, Librairie Hachette, ...

. Lennie Goodings remains as editor and publisher.

Legacy

In 2008, the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

acquired the Virago Press archive, consisting of organisational papers, author/editor files, publicity materials and photographs. Virago was the subject of an hour-long

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

television documentary, ''Virago: Changing the World One Page at a Time'', that was first broadcast in October 2016.

Notable authors

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credi ...

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...

"Celebrating Forty Years of Margaret Atwood"
Virago, 28 June 2019. *

Beatrix Campbell Mary Lorimer Beatrix Campbell (''née'' Barnes; born 3 February 1947) is an English writer and activist who has written for a number of publications since the early 1970s. Her books include ''Wigan Pier Revisited'' (1984), ''Goliath: Britain's ...

Angela Carter Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picar ...

* Barbara Comyns *

Daphne du Maurier Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her gra ...

Eva Figes Eva Figes (; 15 April 1932 – 28 August 2012) was an English author and feminist. Figes wrote novels, literary criticism, studies of feminism, and vivid memoirs relating to her Berlin childhood and later experiences as a Jewish refugee from Hit ...

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo ...

Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended the University of Oxford and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-clas ...

Juliet Mitchell Juliet Mitchell, Lady Goody (born 4 October 1940) is a British psychoanalyst, socialist feminist, research professor and author. Early life and education Mitchell was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1940, and then moved to England in ...

Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the ...

* Sheila Rowbotham * Lynne Segal *

Rachel Seiffert Rachel Seiffert (born 1971) is a British novelist and short story writer. Biography She was born in 1971 in Oxford to German and Australian parents, and was brought up bilingually. She lives in London. Publications and awards Seiffert has p ...

Elaine Showalter Elaine Showalter (born January 21, 1941) is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She influenced feminist literary criticism in the United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocr ...

Melanie Silgardo Melanie Silgardo (born 1956) is an Indian poet and editor based in London, UK. Biography Raised by Goan Catholics parents in Bombay, India, she studied under poet Eunice de Souza and became one of India's major English-language poets in the 1 ...

(also editor) * Carolyn Steedman * Barbara Taylor *

Sylvia Townsend Warner Sylvia Nora Townsend Warner (6 December 1893 – 1 May 1978) was an English novelist, poet and musicologist, known for works such as '' Lolly Willowes'', '' The Corner That Held Them'', and '' Kingdoms of Elfin''. Her paternal grandfather, The ...

Naomi Wolf Naomi Rebekah Wolf (born 1962) is an American feminist author, journalist, and conspiracy theorist. After the 1991 publication of her first book, '' The Beauty Myth'', Wolf became a prominent figure in the third wave of the feminist movemen ...

Notes

External links

Official website

Virago Press Archive
at the

*
Virago: Changing the World One Page at a Time
' (2016), documentary by