Frances Burney, later Madame D’Arblay, wrote the well-known books, Evelina, Cecilia and Camilla. As well as writing her views on Boswell in letters and her diaries, Fanny also left behind one of the earliest accounts of a mastectomy in a letter to her sister, Esther, written on March 22 1812. Frances Burney Feared Breast Cancer In 1810, Frances, while living…
I first came across Mary Bryant’s story on a trip to Sydney in 1987. I had flown from London, but Mary had sailed from Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 on board the Charlotte, one of eleven ships that comprised the First Fleet. The fleet sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and through the perils of the Southern Ocean to…
At school, my daughter was admonished never to quote Wikipedia as a source in her history essays, so when an invite to a Women in Red editing event from Edinburgh University’s Wikimedian in Residence popped into my inbox, I was intrigued. Universities collaborating with Wikimedia: Who Knew? Women in Red: What was that about? With a free afternoon, I thought,…
