Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, 1827-1891: feminist, artist and rebel

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon was the most unconventional and influential leader of the Victorian women's movement.

Enormously talented, energetic and original, she was a feminist, law-reformer, painter, journalist, the close friend of George Eliot and a cousin of Florence Nightingale.

As a painter, Barbara is now recognised as a vital figure among Pre-Raphaelite women artists.

As a feminist she led four great campaigns: for married women's legal status, for the right to work, the right to vote and to education.

Making brilliant use of unpublished journals and letters, Pam Hirsch has written a biography that is as lively and powerful as its subject, recreating the woman in all her moods, and placing her firmly in the context of women's struggle for equality.