Chris Lynch writes to recommend the 1925 novel This Slavery by the British writer Ethel Carnie Holdsworth.
In Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory, Bridget Fowler writes of This Slavery:
It centres on women workers in a Lancashire textile mill. Their experience is conveyed through the story of two sisters: Hester, who enters a loveless marriage to a mill master, and Rachel, who becomes a strike leader. At the climax, as the workers starve in a bitter strike, Hester unexpectedly retails news gained confidentially from another employer; thus, despite her own death, she helps the strike succeed. In this novel, it is a woman, Rachel, who criticises the economistic narrowness of many trade unionists, and Rachel who reads Capital and dreams. Less lyrical but more compelling than her dreams are the novel’s small realist details, of women’s tiredness, for example, or of hunger: “We seem to do nothing but talk and think about grub…. Our bodies get in the way. We’re a set of pigs kept grovelling in the ground.” Or again, in ironical reflections on workers’ endurance: “To starve quietly, unobtrusively and without demonstration, is perhaps the greatest art civilisation has forced on the masses.”
Chris adds, “I have been collecting her books for a couple of years now (a very difficult task as they are almost impossible to find). I plan to contact publishers to see if any of them would be interested in reprinting this remarkable book.” A quick check through the obvious sources ( Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and AddAll.com) produced a sum total of two books by Carnie-Holdsworth, neither of them This Slavery.
Chris has written an article on Ethel Carnie Holdsworth on Wikipedia. Two others articles on her life and work, one by Dr. Kathleen Bell and one by Nicola Wilson can be found on CottonTown.org, a site about the history of the cotton milling industry in Blackburn, England, once known as the weaving capitol of the world.
He also mentions that Trent Editions will republish her last novel, All on Her Own (1929) in 2007.
More on Ethel Carnie Holdsworth.: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2012/mar/08/neglected-women-writers-class-issue
hello Carine, I happened upon this site by sheer chance – it’s late at night and I just wanted to check the e-mail. Sometimes I try various combinations of words to see if I can find out any more on Great aunt Ethel. The message above appears to be something I wrote in an e-mail to one of the book firms.
I’m quite excited to know that copies of the books are still around. My father, before he died, gave me a book – saying “your Great Aunt ethel wrote this” – I was working at the time and it found its way into the back of the bookcase, to be brought out only if I was dusting (not very frequently!| My husband and I went to see Helen of Four Gates when it was shown in August at the British Film Institute and we met up with Chris Lynch, as mentioned above, who is living in Japan. I#m also in contact with a cousin, Helen, who I haven’t seen in nearly 50 years except at my father’s funeral some years ago. I’m retired and live in Bushey, Herts. It would be nice to hear from you, best wishes, Jean Armstrong.
Jean,I have a copy of This Slavery by your great aunt Ethel Carnie. I had to photocopy it from an original book which I got from the British Library in 1990 as it was out of print. At the time I hoped to do a dissertion at Strathclyde University. I also have copies of other works. The House That Jill Built; The Lamp Girl amd Songs of a Factory Girl. I loved her genuine writing then and I think she is even more relevent now. Hope to hear from you, Carine Carr
Not only does it appear never to have been reprinted, but the only copy I could locate is in the British Library collection in London.
Hello, I am one of Ethel Carnie’s great-nieces and should like to know if “This Slavery” has now been reprinted please. I met up with Chris Lynch last month at the National Film Theatre in London for the showing of “Helen of Four Gates” and I have managed to obtain a copy of “Miss Nobody”. anthything to do with my Great Aunt Ethel would begreatly appreciated.
Good news: Trent Editions are now re-publishing This Slavery. I am working on a critical edition for them at the moment. With any luck it will be out later this year, or early next.
Dr Nicola Wilson, Reading
I am a to be third year student of History and English Ba at the University of Reading. I am researching a dissertation on the working class novel in Britain and I would be interested in obtaining a copy of This Slavery by Ethel Carnie. Any recommendtions as to where to start looking.