This Slavery

Publishing Company:
SELFMADEHERO
Imprint:
SELFMADEHERO
Format:
ONE SHOT
Creator(s):

SOPHIE RICKARD (WRITER)
SCARLETT RICKARD (ARTIST)
Number of Pages:

368
Cover price:

£ 18.99
Publication Date:

September 2025
Age:
Fiction/Non-Fiction
FICTION
Key words:
ADAPTATION, YOUNG FEMALE PROTAGONIST,
Summary:

KEY NOTE

Adapted from a novel by the radical feminist poet and author Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, this compelling, multi-layered, and sumptuously designed dramatic romance plays out against the starkly observed realities of what it was like to grow up female in pre-war industrial Britain.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

When the Lancashire cotton-mill that employs them burns to the ground, sisters Rachel and Hester Martin are each forced to find their own way to survive in the harsh realities of pre-war industrial Britain. The contrasting paths they take in their quest for domestic autonomy form a subtly strident allegory of the all but insurmountable barriers of class and gender that then enslaved half the population. Part compelling narrative epic, part fiery Marxist-feminist polemic, this faithful, sumptuous, and revelatory adaptation by the award-winning Rickard Sisters reclaims a lost classic by holding it up as a mirror to our own hard times, and as a gloriously flaming beacon to future communities to offer strength, hope, and dignity.