A 5 Star book that reveals a 5 Star lady, Annie Besant, who has been largely overlooked for more than a Century. Her contributions to the current quality of life of women has regrettably been kept from the public gaze. When Annie Besant was at her most active, a Dirty, Filthy Book was most certainly needed. Victorian women, even more than today, needed to know "how babies are made" and "how to prevent them being made" and society conspired to keep them all in the dark. A Dirty, Filthy Book was a concerted effort to produce an easily accessible and inexpensive booklet of information on birth control that everyone could read and learn from. Male dominated society did its best to prevent this by labelling such things as obscene and such data best confined to medical texts; in truth those were not much better informed. I am totally unable to do this book justice with my review and so I shall be recommending and am recommending this book to everyone. It truly is jaw-dropping, in a good way, because it so clearly sets out the many ways that Annie Besant changed and effected change in her lifetime and into ours. An Advanced Reader Copy review - free books never buy my opinion!

This book took me by surprise. I had never heard of Annie Besant, a Victorian reformer, and as I read about her struggles i felt increasingly angry. In addition to giving a vivid account of a remarkable woman Michael Meyer fills his book with many small details vividly illustrating Victorian values e.g. the way in which birth notices in The Times coldly reported the arrival of a son or daughter to a man with no mention of his wife's name. The working conditions of young girls in match factories read like something from a horror story. This has changed my view of the world more than any other book I've read this year and I believe that it is IMPORTANT because Annie Besant's battles are still being fought in 2024.

This book interested me enormously, I don't often read non-fiction but I'm really glad I picked this up. 'A Dirty, Filthy Book' is a description of a pamphlet published by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh back in the mid 19th century, a pamphlet about birth control. It's incomprehensible to us now in modern developed society to understand how holding back knowledge about the female reproductive system and how people's bodies work, could at all jeopardise morals or not benefit wellbeing. This is the time where females were subservient and without rights, and even Queen Victoria's own opinions (snippets from her journals are included) are very clearly on the side of rigid-thinking society. Annie Besant was clearly a brave and feisty woman, putting her opinions before her own welfare, even losing custody of her children during the proceedings. As with many women in history, she's not well-known publically, but hopefully this book rights a little of that wrong.

I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author, the publisher and Net Galley. I learned so much reading this book, it was a real pleasure. I was aware of some events and people referenced in this book such as the match girls strike. However much of this I hadn’t heard of and that surprises me now seeing how prolific Annie Besant’s influence was. This book tells Annie Besant’s story alongside that of Charles Bradlaugh and a significant trial they went through after publishing a guide to birth control during Queen Victoria’s reign. Something that caused great scandal but was in demand from many people who couldn’t support more children. Annie was an inspiring social reformer and did so much through her newspaper work and campaigning to help others who were caused much suffering through the injustices of Victorian Society and the expansion of the empire. This was fascinating. It did dip a bit in the middle but the beginning and end were brilliant. Annie sacrificed so much in the service of social justice and others. She was an absolute warrior in defence of her fellow humans. This is non-fiction but it’s still a thrilling read full of intrigue, shocks and scandals. Glad to have read this, thoroughly educational and enjoyable.

A book with a difference. Annie Besant a name that I did not know until I read the book. A lady of the time, who really was the start of the women's right to contraception for todays age. History abounds in this book and takes you at times on a dark journey of the time. Research that was done for this book is to acknowledged. Excellent piece of writing.