The history of women is a struggle over identity and inclusion: we are all ‘normal’ women even when we have been described as exceptional or deviant or inadequate, even when our vanity prompts us to stand apart, or our ambition to compete with each other. This history has only added one voice to the chorus of women who speak up; this history records the everyday heroism of ‘normal’ women, the extraordinariness of the ordinary, and in a sometimes heartless world, the perennial loving power of sisterhood.

  Acknowledgements

  I am so grateful to the very many people who have helped me research, think about, and write this book. Especially I should like to thank Zahra Glibbery, for research, especially anything about horses, marathon copy edits, and her meticulous work on the detail of footnotes and captions, Victoria Atkins and Anna Cusack for research, Karen Ingala Smith for her unique and valuable list of women killed in domestic violence, Arabella Pike for being such an encouraging editor, Iain Hunt for such care and thought, Julian Humphries for listening to my idea and producing an image both symbolic and beautiful, Charlie Redmayne for understanding at once what I was trying to do with such an ambitious project and bringing in the entire HarperCollins team who have all been so enthusiastic and helpful from day one – including the audio books team Molly Robinson, Fionnuala Barrett and Caroline Friend, the children’s Farshore team, Emily Lamm, Melissa Fairley and Harriett Rogers. and those, at the time of writing, that I have yet to meet and work with as this project goes from one edition to another.

  I would not have embarked on such a huge book without the encouragement of friends: Christopher Cook, Stella Tillyard, Malcolm Gaskill, Kirk Moore, Anna Whitelock, Diane Purkiss, Michael Jones, Gareth Russell, Jennie McNamara, my sister Tina Ryan, and some wonderful teachers whose loss I have felt acutely when writing about their particular interests: Geoffrey Carnall, Alun Howkins and Maurice Hutt.

  I owe such a debt of gratitude to the inspiring thinkers who wrote the books that I have read and re-read. Their dedication to the history and progress of women has made it possible for me to write here a longer, wider story, without losing the detail of the past. Only a very few of their books are listed in the bibliography due to lack of space. And I thank also, those wonderful men and women who campaigned so effectively for the education of women, that there was a place for women at universities, and those women who directly encouraged or funded my study: Elaine Gregory, Mary Wedd, a Cambridge graduate, and Winifred Leonard, who graduated at Oxford before women were awarded degrees. I was indeed blessed in Aunts. Thanks also to Butter, the Irish setter – who has accompanied me on many thoughtful walks – and Bob-Bob, the tawny owl who showed me how to fly free.

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