The Times Great Women's Lives: A Celebration in Obituaries

by Sue Corbett (Editor), Lucy Worsley (Foreword)

Nearly 150 years of women's progress is charted in this compilation of significant women's obituaries

With entries dating from 1872 to 2013, the latest in The Times' series of anthologies of its obituaries focuses attention on almost two centuries of groundbreaking achievements by more than 100 women, from around the world. Mary Sommerville (d. 1872), the pioneering mathematician and scientist with whose obituary the anthology begins, would have been astonished by what many of the other women remembered here achieved—not least one of the more prominent graduates of the Oxford college that was named Somerville after her—Margaret Thatcher (d. 2013). The collection also recalls the lives of actresses, aviators, botanists, doctors, British royalty, musicians, Nobel Prize winners, novelists, travelers, U.S. First Ladies, and many other prominent women.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

384 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2014

About the author

Sue Corbett is the author of 12 Again, Winner of the California Young Reader Medal, and Free Baseball, a finalist for 10 state readers' choice awards. Her latest novel is The Last Newspaper Boy in America and her first picture book, The 12 Days of Christmas in Virginia, have just been released this fall. "

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

You either are or you're not: a reader of the Times obits. I am, because I find them pithy little gems that tell life stories of people i wish I'd known. Here is a delightful group of women, all dead as doornails, but brought back to life vividly by their obituarists. Everyone from George Elliot to Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse - the range keeps you from thinking,"Oh god, not another worthy British dame."

[Rohase Piercy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this is a fantastic collection, but a very weighty tome and I'm sorry to say I didn't make it all the way through. It's a wonderful reference book for anyone interested in twentieth century women's history - the problem for me was that I borrowed it from the library and now have to return it (having already renewed once) - it's the sort of thing you like to dip into between lighter reading rather than read all at once. But well worth having if you've room on your bookshelf!