Emily Wilding Davison

"Political journalist Lucy Fisher’s debut is a compelling examination of the short but eventful life of the suffragette Emily Davison, who sacrificed her life at the 1913 Derby, living up to her organisation’s maxim of “deeds not words”. Fisher’s skilful biography unpacks the apparent contradictions in Davison’s life; born into upper-middle-class privilege, a series of tragic reversals saw her family reduced to poverty and led her to become radicalised from a young age. Fisher does not shy away from describing the cruelty of the treatment that suffragettes received, but makes a convincing case for Davison having achieved a great deal more than simply being a martyr to the cause." - Alexander Larman, the Observer