OH HAPPY DAY - THOSE TIMES AND THESE TIMES (First edition - first impression - illustrated - near fine copy)

Carmen Callil

ISBN 10: 0224090305 / ISBN 13: 9780224090308

Published by Jonathan Cape [Penguin Random House], Edinburgh, 2020

About this Item

First impression of the true first edition, with the number "1" on the printer's page. Illustrated throughout the text. ***Near fine in black cloth-covered boards, with copper block titles to the spine. Head and tail of spine just very slightly creased, otherwise no discernible faults. The boards are clean and unmarked. No bumps. Corners sharp. Page block edges nice and clean. No reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. Internally also near fine with no inscriptions. No creases or tears. Paper stock clean. ***In a near fine colour printed dustwrapper, which has not been price-clipped, retaining the original publisher's printed price of £18.99. The dustwrapper is near fine, with no creasing or other faults - bright and clean with no fading - just very slight rubbing to the edges. ***346 pages including an extensive section of Notes, huge Bibliography, and Index at the back of the book. 240mm x 160mm. ***'Carmen Callil explores her routes in a book that is a miracle of research and whose writing is fuelled by righteous anger - a story of Empire, migration and the poverty and injustice of nineteenth-century England.' (Quote taken from the front flap of the dustwrapper) *** 'Dame Carmen Thérèse Callil, DBE, FRSL (15 July 1938 - 17 October 2022) was an Australian publisher, writer and critic who spent most of her career in the United Kingdom. She founded Virago Press in 1973 and received the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature in 2017. She has been described by Gail Rebuck as "the most extraordinary publisher of her generation"'. From 1967 to 1970, she was publicity manager of the paperback imprint Panther Books. Callil later took responsibility for all imprints of Granada Publishing, and then at Anthony Blond and André Deutsch. She left to work for Ink, a countercultural newspaper founded by Richard Neville, Andrew Fisher, Felix Dennis and Ed Victor in 1971. At Ink, Callil met Marsha Rowe and Rosie Boycott, who founded the feminist magazine Spare Rib in June 1972. In 1973, Callil founded Virago Press (initially known as Spare Rib Books), to "publish books which celebrated women and women's lives, and which would, by so doing, spread the message of women's liberation to the whole population", through the work of new and neglected women writers. Rowe and Boycott became directors of Virago in its first years. At Virago, among other business and editorial aspects of the company she was responsible for the creation and development of the Virago Modern Classics list (choosing a distinctive green colour for the books' spines), which brought back into print many hundreds of the best women's works of the past.' (Wiki) ***First impression of the true first edition. A beautiful copy of this fascinating historical biography / family history of the founder of the Virago Press. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.

Seller Inventory # 9552

Bibliographic Details

• Title: OH HAPPY DAY - THOSE TIMES AND THESE TIMES (First edition - first impression - illustrated - near fine copy)
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape [Penguin Random House], Edinburgh
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0224090305
• ISBN 13: 9780224090308
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition
• Printing: First Impression
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature
  • First Editions

About this title

Synopsis

Carmen Callil explores her roots in a book that is a miracle of research and whose writing is fuelled by righteous anger – a story of Empire, migration and the poverty and injustice of nineteenth-century England.

In this remarkable book, Carmen Callil discovers the story of her British ancestors, beginning with her great-great-grandmother Sary Lacey, born illegitimate in 1808, an impoverished stocking frame worker in Leicestershire. Through detailed research, we follow Sary from slum to tenement and from pregnancy to pregnancy. We also meet George Conquest, a canal worker and the father of one of Sary’s children. George was sentenced – for stealing a piece of hemp – to seven years’ transportation to Australia, where he faced the extraordinary brutality of convict life. Meanwhile, Mary Ann Brooks and her father John, a silversmith, travel across the seas from Lincolnshire to escape the Workhouse and life as a skivvy.

But for George, as for so many destitute and disenfranchised British people like him, Australia turned out to be his Happy Day. He survived, prospered and eventually returned to England, where he met Sary again, after nearly thirty years. He brought her out to Australia, and they were never parted again.

Carmen Callil not only reclaims from obscurity the lives of these ordinary men and women who were sent to Australia as convicts or domestic servants, but also draws telling parallels for our own times. Oh Happy Day is a moving story of poverty, social injustice, Empire and migration.

About the Author

Carmen Callil was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, but has spent most of her career in the United Kingdom. She founded Virago Press in 1973 and in 1982 became Managing Director of Chatto & Windus, also remaining Chair of Virago until 1995, when she retired from both publishing houses. She co-edited, with Colm Tóibín, The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English since 1950, and her first book, Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family and Fatherland, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Award.