Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History

by Philippa Gregory, Joe Jameson (Read by), James Goode (Read by), Tania Rodrigues (Read by), Nneka Okoye (Read by)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

If you’re tired of British history written by men, about men, then Philippa Gregory has the book for you. Normal Women details the history of England from a feminist lens, building out the full spectrum as it always should have been.

“Lively, timely and gloriously energetic. Each page bursts with life, and every chapter swirls with personalities left out of traditional narratives of Britain’s past. Philippa Gregory has produced something rare and wonderful: a genuinely new history of [Britain], with women at its beating heart.” —Dan Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Plantagenets

“Stunning. . . . Full of surprises. . . . A brilliant, essential read.” —The Independent (UK)

 The #1 New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her magnum opus—a landmark work of feminist nonfiction that radically redefines our understanding of the extraordinary roles ordinary women played throughout British history and “should be included in every history lesson” (Glamour UK)

Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry? That the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was started and propelled by women who were protesting a tax on women? Or that celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men, but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior?

These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from reading Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious and groundbreaking book, she tells the story of England over 900 years, for the very first time placing women—some fifty per cent of the population—center stage.

Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records, newspapers, and journals to find highwaywomen and beggars, murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The “normal women” you will meet in these pages went to war, ploughed the fields, campaigned, wrote, and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency, and built ships, corn mills and houses. They committed crimes or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things, and rioted. A lot.

A landmark work of scholarship and storytelling, Normal Women chronicles centuries of social and cultural change—from 1066 to modern times—powered by the determination, persistence, and effectiveness of women.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212701631
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	02/27/2024
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 5.70(h) x 1.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Phillipa Gregory is an internationally bestselling author of historical novels whose success extends to the United States as well, where she is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. She earned her BA from the University of Sussex and a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from Edinburgh University, where she is a regent. Gregory is the author of the Wideacre trilogy, the Earthly Joys series, and the Plantagenet and Tudor novels, which include the enormously popular Other Boleyn Girl, of which there are over a million US copies in print. She is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff and was awarded the 2016 Harrogate Festival Award for Contribution to Historical Fiction.

Joe Jameson trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He has narrated over a hundred audiobooks, including titles by Gillian Slovo, Bear Grylls, Malorie Blackman, and Susan Hill, as well as The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff. He also works extensively in theater and television.

James Goode is an
American author and winner of Washingtonian’s
prestigious “Washingtonian of the Year” award. He is the author of Best Addresses: A Century of Washington’s
Distinguished Apartment Houses and currently lives in Washington, DC.

Tania Rodrigues is a London-based actor and voice artist and an Earphones Award–winning narrator. She brings a unique cultural perspective to her work, coming from a family with roots in India, Portugal, and Britain. She grew up in Hong Kong and has since lived in both the UK and US. She trained at the Drama Studio in London and completed a BA degree with honors in English and drama. She has narrated many award-winning audiobooks, including the Booker Prize winner The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai.

Clare Corbett, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, studied at the Welsh College of Music and Drama. After winning the Carlton Hobbs audition, she was chosen to be on BBC Radio. After leaving BBC she went on to narrate several children’s books, including Over the Moon, I Rule Dogsbottom School, and Boy Beware. She has transitioned into reading young adult novels, including many installments in the Doctor Who series.

Hometown:

Yorkshire, England

Date of Birth:

January 9, 1954

Place of Birth:

Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa

Education:

B.A. in history, Sussex University, 1982; Ph.D., 18th-century popular fiction, Edinburgh, 1984

Website:

http://www.PhilippaGregory.com

Editorial Reviews

History consists of events conducted mostly by men and recorded by men. In her clear, uncompromising voice, Philippa Gregory turns the tables, taking listeners through 900 years of abuse and betrayals, yearnings and near-miraculous accomplishments of women. Frequent interjections by Clare Corbett, Tania Rodrigues, Nneka Okoye, James Goode, and Joe Jameson provide voices for the court documents, journals, letters, interviews, and diaries Gregory uses to illustrate her exceptional research. Narrating in an engaging matter-of-fact tone, she reveals shockingly repressive laws supported by men and horrific punishments endured by women. Stories of women from all walks of life and classes, including women criminals, women husbands, widows, and spinsters, as well as accounts of rape, racism, sapphism, and unfair wage practices, fill Gregory's expansive social history. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2024 - AudioFile

Gregory has the novelist’s eye for the quirky and the vivid; the wryness of a confident narrator. [Normal Women] is a lasting work of social history.”
— The Times (UK)

“A triumph of popular history.” — The Spectator

“This ambitious book is a rich contribution to women’s public history—and a powerful reminder that normal women have long made history.” — BBC History Magazine

“Magisterial, exhaustively researched . . . A colourful panorama of social history. Gregory is a gifted storyteller and this well-illustrated read zips along at an enjoyable pace. . . . Her insights are fascinating.” — Daily Mirror (UK)

“Gregory brings her extensive knowledge of women in society over the centuries to . . . [this] tour de force of research.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Richly researched . . . Reveals a number of surprising truths.” — New York Post

“Stunning. . . . Full of surprises. . . . A brilliant, essential read.” — The Independent

From the Publisher

04/05/2024

Historical fiction writer Gregory (It's a Prince Thing) chronicles the role British women played in society by era, starting in the year 1086. Her book shows that after the Norman conquest of Britain, convents and abbeys retained power and wealth; they also functioned as learning centers for girls and women, who made and published books, and engaged in the arts. Gregory emphasizes the indispensability of women in a wide variety of professions, including raising livestock, apprenticing in various trades, and working as domestic servants. Women also did healing work, such as herbalism, midwifery, and nursing, despite the restrictions placed on those fields in the 20th century. For instance, though the greatest physical danger for women was childbirth, midwives were forbidden from offering advice on contraception, even in the 1920s. Gregory notes too that sex work was not a permanent occupation for many women but was instead an option to exercise as necessity demanded. Women were also not excluded from military service and stepped into roles of leadership during the Thirty Years' War. VERDICT A comprehensive saga about British women and their obstacles throughout hundreds of years. Suitable for all readers.—Barrie Olmstead

Library Journal

2024-01-04
The bestselling, prolific historical novelist presents “a huge book about women.”

Gregory brings her extensive knowledge of women in society over the centuries to a vast sociological study of the lives of “regular” women throughout the past 900 years. A tour de force of research, the book chronicles the role of women in British society by era, starting with William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book, commissioned in 1086, up until 1994. In each period, the author presents sections on women’s health, marriage, work, crime, punishment, immigration, rape, and “women loving women.” The overall sense reading this dense social history is that “normal” women, in spite of men’s belittling characterizations, made indelible contributions to the British Empire while rarely reaping the benefits. The author keenly delineates the different lives of women by class, such as the arduous life of working women versus aristocratic women, who, though rich in material possessions, were still affected by inadequate diet, constrictive clothing, poor ventilation, and mental strain from severe societal oppression. A familiar, depressing refrain over the centuries is the meager material compensation for women’s work and their deliberate exclusion from “profitable work, from education, from training, from the guilds and trades, and from the professions and from authority.” Particularly enlightening is Gregory’s exploration of Victorian society, from mining strikes, to campaigns for women’s suffrage, to the outrageous hypocrisy of Queen Victoria serving as both a steely emperor and docile wife opposed to women’s rights. Gregory also examines “Sapphism,” “Female Husbands,” and other similar topics suggesting that sexual transitioning was more frequent to women seeking greater roles and autonomy in society than previously regarded by historians. The author concludes in 1994, when the Church of England finally ordained women as priests.

A highly instructive, exhaustive study that reveals the realities behind “ideal” or “inferior” designations of women.

Kirkus Reviews