Her Brilliant Career

<p>An exuberant group biography--a splendidly various collection of 'brief lives' written with both gusto and sensitivity (<em>The Guardian</em>)--that follows ten women in 1950s Britain whose pioneering lives paved the way for feminism and laid the foundation of modern women's success.</p><p>In <em>Her Brilliant Career</em> Rachel Cooke goes back in time to offer an entertaining and iconoclastic look at ten women in the 1950s--pioneers whose professional careers and complicated private lives helped to create the opportunities available to today's women. These plucky and ambitious individuals--among them a film director a cook an architect an editor an archaeologist a race car driver--left the house discovered the bliss of work and ushered in the era of the working woman. </p><p>Daring and independent these remarkable unsung heroines--whose obscurity makes their accomplishments all the more astonishing and relevant --loved passionately challenged men's control made their own mistakes and took life on their own terms breaking new ground and offering inspiration. Their individual portraits gradually form a landscape of 1950s culture and women's unique--and rapidly evolving--role.</p><p>Before there could be a Danica Patrick there had to be a Sheila van Damm; before there was Barbara Walters there was Nancy Spain; before there was Kathryn Bigelow came Muriel Box. The pioneers of <em>Her Brilliant Career</em> forever changed the fabric of culture society and the work force.</p><p>This is the Fifties retold: vivid surprising and most of all modern.</p><p><em>Her Brilliant Career</em> is illustrated with more than 80 black-and-white photographs.</p>