Women Who Read Are Dangerous is a book which I bought at Stockbridge in Edinburgh a couple of months ago. Obviously in times past it was quite unusual for females to be educated, but to be fair a lot of men couldn’t read either. I’ve no doubt that there were plenty of the so called upper classes who thought it was a mistake to educate the masses. In this book there’s a selection of paintings, drawings and photographs of women reading. The artworks range from the Middle Ages, when teaching women to read was frowned upon by many men, to the present day. You would probably recognise quite a few of the paintings as some of the images appear on the sidebar of some blogs.
I was hoping that it was one of those books on Amazon which you can keek into to get a flavour of but unfortunatly it isn’t. I ‘m somewhat shocked at how expensive this book is online as I bought it for £2. The one below is of Katie Lewis by Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Above is The Artist’s Sisters by Carl Christian Constantin Hansen
Above is The Rose Garden by Peder Severin Kroyer
I love Jessie Marion King’s work and the illustration above was created for the book called The Magic Grammar. King was a Scottish artist.
There are loads of lovely images in this book and as Marilyn Munro was apparently a very keen reader I thought I’d include the one below in this post. The version of the photo in the book is in colour.
Apparently the book she is reading is Ulysses. According to the photographer Eve Arnold Marilyn was reading the book before she turned up for the photo shoot. She said it was hard work and she was reading it out loud to understand it better.
I like the woman in green on the cover as well! I’d love to see more of the pictures, but this sounds like one to borrow from the library if possible.
Lisa,
Yes I think I was just very lucky to have managed to buy one very cheaply. It’s an interesting read as well as having some lovely art works in it.
The illustrations you included in the post are wonderful–I remember reading the MM read Ulysses, but not the part about reading it aloud. That’s not a bad idea! I’ve never got more than 100 pages into it myself.
Jane GS,
I don’t think I’m even going to try Ulysses. I read Dubliners and wasn’t too impressed!
I agree that Ulysses is not in the list of my first 50 Classic Club Books.
I imagine, though I’m not sure, that Marilyn read Ulysses while she was married to the playwright Arthur Miller, a renowned intellectual.
I really enjoyed this post. What a treat!
Judith,
I was thinking she might be married to Arthur Miller at that time, although I think she was quite a reader before she met him, I like to think so anyway!