The things you learn from edited editions of CM Yonge...

[tree_and_leaf]

Amazingly, and despite my belief that it was a rather improbably broad satire on the shortsightedness of earnest teenage girls, there really was an organisation called S.P.E.W.

It stood for 'The Society for the Promotion of Employment for Women', and was founded by a group of Victorian feminists (the Langham Place group) in the 1880s.

Comments

[aervir.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether JKR might have known of it. For all the fun and mockery directed at Hermione's SPEW, the idea of her running a House Elves' Rights organization named after a pioneering feminist club appeals quite a lot to me, I must say.

[tree_and_leaf]

I suspect she might know - it makes that a nice combination of mockery and hidden tribute to a pioneering spirit...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I agree.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

And a friend of mine found all their archives still sitting in someone's attic only a few years ago!

[tree_and_leaf]

Gosh - fantastic discoevry.

Oh, Charlotte, didn't you think?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

And what about calling a periodical for girls The Monthly Packet, eh?

Groan...

[tree_and_leaf]

She did introduce a well-meaning but not very efficient ladies' comitte for employing poor women which abbreviated to F.U.L.E. in The Clever Woman of the Family...

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

This is one of those things that reminds me why I like Rowling.

[tree_and_leaf]

Good, isn't it? I like these unflashy little references to obscure bits of knowledge...

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

I think she still may be chuckling...

[tree_and_leaf]

I know I would be in her place.

Marvellous!

[themolesmother.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure she knew all about it.

Good old Jo.

MM

Re: Marvellous!

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh, so am I! She does seem to know quite a lot of odd, out of the way things.

[snorkackcatcher]

Damn. Now I want to see one of those time-turner stories where Hermione ends up in the nineteenth century, and ...

[tree_and_leaf]

It's an intriguing idea. Certainly more so than the 'Hermione goes back in time and falls in love with Sirius' type!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

No, no, no. Hermione goes back in time and fall in love with Remus. Sirius is too busy sleeping around, or thinking gurls are a waste of time.

[tree_and_leaf]

I stand corrected, though I'm sure I've seen at least one Hermione/ schoolboy! Sirius out there...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Ah, another CMY fan; my wife Creatrix is as well.

[tree_and_leaf]

I like her books very much, though I have reservations about her political views. Religiously, I suppose I'm quite close to her - except I'm sure she'd be horrified by my belief that women can be priests!