Explore women’s history books and publications connected with the Forgotten Women of Wakefield. The books come from our research and the people involved in the project.
Titles vary from Wakefield women’s history and original research, to wider works by members of the team. This growing collection brings together historical research, personal stories and creative responses in print.
We’ll add more publications as our research develops.
Clara Clarkson’s Merrie Wakefield
Based on the diaries of Clara Clarkson (1811–1889) of Alverthorpe Hall, Wakefield
Clara Clarkson was one of only ten Wakefield women to sign the 1866 Suffrage Petition. In 1860, she was instrumental in establishing the Wakefield Anti-Slavery Association.
Clara wrote around 40 diaries, but only four survive. Those responsible for the remaining journals destroyed most of them long ago, fearing that their contents might tarnish the reputation of the “great and the good” of Wakefield.
Ann Jacques’ 1971 edited publication of the surviving diaries, Merrie Wakefield, gives us a tantalising, if sanitised, glimpse into a world where people discussed and picked over Wakefield’s politics, social activism and cultural reforms from inside many a ladies’ parlour.
Clara Clarkson’s Merrie Wakefield continues this work and provides a gateway into Clara Clarkson’s life for you to explore, enjoy and cherish.
The book explores aspects of the award-winning film Clara, written by Caleb Shepherd, directed by Anastasia Arsentyeva and produced by Dream Time Creative. The film creatively reimagines parts of Clara’s journals and is available to watch on this website.
In Clara Clarkson’s Merrie Wakefield, the reader can enjoy a faithful reproduction of Ann Jacques’ original work alongside extensive research by historian Helga Fox. This provides further insight and transports the reader back into Clara’s nineteenth-century Wakefield.
Edited by Steven B. Williams, the book also contains creative responses to Clara’s journals by writer Sarah Leah Cobham, with illustrations by artists Shannon S. Wishon and Zainab Jode.
£25 including postage and packing within the UK
If you are outside the UK, please contact us, with your location, for a price.
Nino’s Song by Leah Cobham
£10 including postage and packing within the UK
If you are outside the UK, please contact us, with your location, for a price.
Nino’s Song takes readers beyond Wakefield to Georgia, exploring the country’s complex history, culture and relationships with Russia and the West through the personal experiences of its British narrator, Leah.
Returning to Georgia following the breakdown of a difficult relationship with David, Leah hopes to find both closure and a way to reconnect with a country she once loved. Supported by her Georgian women friends, she begins to examine her own experiences and the contradictions of a culture that has inspired both affection and frustration.
Woven through her journey is a search for St Nino, the woman traditionally associated with bringing Christianity to Georgia, and for a mysterious box of secrets bearing her name. Through these intertwined stories, the book explores belonging, friendship, identity and what it means to find your place as a woman within another culture — and within your own.
Sarah Cobham presented a paper on Nino’s Song at the Georgian Music Conference Honouring Nino Kalandadze.