Madeleine L’Engle: A New Perspective on Science and Girls

Madeleine L’Engle, author of the groundbreaking children’s novel A Wrinkle in Time, was a clumsy girl, born to older parents who loved her and wanted her but weren’t sure quite what to do with her after twenty years of childless marriage. Her father, Charles Camp, was a journalist who had been exposed to mustard gas during WWI and caught pneumonia frequently. Her mother was often in frail health. When Madeleine was born in New York City in 1918, antibiotics hadn’t been discovered. Madeleine was over-protected and sent off to boarding school for most of her lonely childhood.

Lucy Maud Montgomery

A precocious red-headed orphan from Prince Edward Island captured the world’s heart in 1908. Anne Shirley, otherwise known as Anne of Green Gables, has withstood the test of time and to this day remains a beloved literary heroine. What about the woman who made her? In many ways, Lucy Maud Montgomery has been overshadowed by her popular creation. Little is known about the story behind the story- the orphan raised by strict grandparents in rural Cavendish, fighting loneliness with the world inside her head. Lucy Maud Montgomery most certainly qualifies as a shero in her own right.

Germaine de Staël – the woman Napoleon feared

 

Germaine de Staël made her reputation in at the end of the 18th century Europe as a writer whose charisma, wit and keen intelligence attracted politicians, philosophers, poets and artists. Her life spanned the Age of Enlightenment, French Revolution, Napoleon’s reign and the dawn of the Romantic era. She was a celebrated essayist, political agitator and novelist with a passion for theatre. Her politics so threatened Napoleon that he had her exiled from Paris.

Lesya Ukrainka

In Ukraine, the foremost woman poet and playwright is Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka, but she is much better known by the pen name her mother gave her: Lesya Ukrainka (Lesya of Ukraine)—a name as highly recognizable as her famous braided hair. Lesya Ukrainka is seen everywhere on statutes, postage stamps, paintings, films, and certainly in books by and about her.

Her very name “Lesya Ukrainka” was itself a brave and radical act for identifying as a Ukrainian during the oppressive regime of Imperial Russia which considered Ukrainian nationalism and the language as subversive and treasonous.

Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen was born on 13^th April 1891.

Nellallitea ‘Nella’ Larsen was an American writer. Although she only published two novels, she was seen as a significant contributor to what was called ‘The Harlem Renaissance’.

Before she became known for her writing Nella first trained as a nurse, before later becoming a librarian. She was the first black woman to graduate from the New York Public Library school. She soon went to work in the Harlem branch of the library, which is where she met and was inspired by other artists & writers in the Harlem Renaissance.