The Virago Story: Assessing the Impact of a Feminist Publishing Phenomenon

by Catherine Riley

The 1970s witnessed a renaissance in women's print culture, as feminist presses and bookshops sprang up in the wake of the second-wave women's movement. At four decades' remove from that heady era, however, the landscape looks dramatically different, with only one press from the period still active in contemporary publishing: Virago. This engaging history explains how, from modest beginnings, Virago managed to weather epochal transformations in gender politics, literary culture, and the book publishing business. Drawing on original interviews with many of the press's principal figures, it gives a compelling account of Virago's place in recent women's history while also reflecting on the fraught relationship between activism and commerce.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction

198 pages, Paperback

Published April 23, 2018

About the author

Catherine Riley is a feminist historian and writer, and an expert on contemporary feminist publishing in the UK. She has taught English Literature and Gender Studies at Lancaster and Northumbria Universities and Birkbeck College in London, where she completed her doctoral thesis on the feminist publisher Virago.

Catherine has published two books on women's writing and publishing, and has contributed chapters and articles to edited collections on these themes

Reviews

[Britta Böhler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for Women's History Month 2025

[Ryan Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catherine Riley is an excellent academic writer, essential reading for my dissertation.