Books by Rachel Holmes

The acclaimed biography of Sarah Baartman, once a slave and later a showgirl'A significant and timely book . Holmes has produced a laceratingly powerful story' Frances Wilson, Literary Review'Impeccable ... In telling her extraordinary story, Holmes's fascinating book illuminates the forces which dominated her age, and resound in our own' Sunday TelegraphIn 1810 the slave turned showgirl Sarah Baartman, London's most famous curiosity, became its legal cause célèbre. Famed for her exquisite physique - in particular her shapely bottom - she was stared at, stripped, pinched, painted, worshipped and ridiculed. This talented, tragic young South African woman became a symbol of exploitation, colonialism - and defiance.In this scintillating and vividly written book Rachel Holmes traces the full arc of Baartman's extraordinary life for the first time.

A reissue of Rachel Holmes's landmark biography of Dr James Barry, one of the most enigmatic figures of the Victorian age.James Barry was one of the nineteenth century's most exceptional doctors, and one of its great unsung heroes. Famed for his brilliant innovations, Dr Barry influenced the birth of modern medical practice in places as far apart as South Africa, Jamaica and Canada. Barry's skills attracted admirers across the globe, but there were also many detractors of the ostentatious dandy, who caused controversy everywhere he went. Yet unbeknownst to all, the military surgeon concealed a lifelong secret at the heart of his identity: on his death Barry was claimed to be anatomically female and in fact a cross-dresser.Vividly drawn and meticulously researched, The Secret Life of Dr James Barry brings to life one of the most enigmatic figures of the Victorian age, elevating its subject to a latter-day transgender icon - and is a landmark in the art of biography.

The extraordinary and dramatic biography of the first modern feminist, who spent her entire life fighting for the principle of equality'Gripping ... Most lives would be overshadowed by such a melodramatic end. But Marx's life was so much more than a murder mystery, as Rachel Holmes's gripping and vividly told biography demonstrates' Sunday Times'Superb ... The story of this remarkable life is so well told, with a rare combination of pace, verve and scholarship' Jeanette Winterson, Daily TelegraphUnrestrained by convention, lion-hearted and free, Eleanor Marx (1855-98) was an exceptional woman. Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert's Mme Bovary. She pioneered the theatre of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers' and gas workers' trades unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later she edited many of his key political works, and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, sexual equality was a necessary precondition for a just society. Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference - her favourite motto: 'Go ahead!' With her closest friends - among them, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne and William Morris - she was at the epicentre of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: she loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organising until her untimely end, which - with its letters, legacies, secrets and hidden paternity - reads in part like a novel by Wilkie Collins, and in part like the modern tragedy it was. Rachel Holmes has gone back to original sources to tell the story of the woman who did more than any other to transform British politics in the nineteenth century, who was unafraid to live her contradictions.