Today marks 100 years since the passing of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, when the first women were given the vote in the United Kingdom. There was still a long way to go to achieve Universal Suffrage (which would not reached for a further ten years) – the 1918 Act only gave the vote to women who were over the age of 30, and either a property owner, university-educated, or a member (or married to a member) of ‘the Local Government Register’ – but it was a hugely important first step towards equal representation.
And we are enormously proud to have published Make More Noise this month, to commemorate the #V0te100 centenary, the Suffragette movement, and the campaign for Votes for Women.
Make More Noise is an anthology of short stories by ten of the UK’s very best storytellers, celebrating inspirational girls and women. Not all of the stories are about the suffrage movement – there’s a wonderful mix of historical and contemporary stories, stories based on real events, and stories that are entirely imagined.
And we’re delighted by the reception that the book has received so far. On Saturday Make More Noise was named The Times’ Children’s Book of the Week – Alex O’Connell described the book as “a fine introduction to some terrific writers, or a treat for their existing fans.”
You can take a look inside Make More Noise below – here’s the opening story in the collection, Out For The Count by Sally Nicholls:
In the speech from which this anthology takes its name, Emmeline Pankhurst said: “You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under.”
We hope that our book inspires you to make more noise.
