STOPES, Charlotte Carmichael.

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The Sphere of "Man" First edition, association copy, inscribed by the suffragist and Irish nationalist Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington: "Please return to H. S. Skeffington". The author challenges the contemporary legal status of women in England, comparing it unfavourably to the past status of women in social and trade guilds. She also points out the higher legal status afforded to contemporary Irish and Scottish women.Hanna Sheehy Skeffington (1877-1946) was "one of Ireland's most ardent promoters of women's rights" (Women's Museum of Ireland). She was one of the founders of the Irish Women's Franchise League, a militant suffrage organization, and the Irish Women's Workers Union. She was a dedicated Republican, and in later years held executive roles for Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil, but women's rights remained her priority.Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (1840-1929) was a Shakespeare scholar and historian of women. Her 1894 British Freewomen: Their Historical Privilege supported the women's suffrage movement by showing how their legal status had deteriorated over time. In The Sphere of "Man", she stipulates the importance of further research of this kind: "we have to study how the liberties of women have narrowed from precedent to precedent, and to find what precedents we have in our favour that might justify action to-day" (p. 4). Provenance: from the collection of the suffrage historian Elizabeth Crawford.

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