Informação: Anna Kingsford comprou e começou a editar esse jornal em 5 de outubro de 1872, e continuou com esse trabalho por um curto período, provavelmente por pouco mais de um ano, embora Edward Maitland afirme que: “depois de dois anos de tentativa e da perda de várias centenas de libras, a incompatibilidade do padrão de moralidade jornalística, ao qual ela se propunha, com a possibilidade de sucesso comercial se tornou demasiado óbvia e não podia mais ser desconsiderada, e então o empreendimento foi abandonado” (veja as citações abaixo, ainda em inglês).

            “Her husband’s first curacy was that of Atcham, near Shrewsbury, of which parish he subsequently, after sundry migrations, became vicar; a picturesque and pleasant, but – as it proved for her – an insalubrious spot, lying low on the banks of the Severn, and liable to floods. Finding continuous residence there impracticable, and being impelled irresistibly to activities for which a country life afforded no scope, and resolute in her struggle against her physical disabilities, she undertook the risks and conduct of a London weekly magazine then seeking a purchaser, and accordingly became proprietor of The Lady’s Own Paper; a Journal of Progress, Taste, and Art, editing it herself, and dividing her time between London and her home. By this agency she sought to give expression to the ideas which crowded on her in regard to social reform, especially in matters directly affecting her own sex; not, however, restricting the term to its personal aspect. For, while aiming immediately at the enlargement of the sphere assigned to women, she aimed rather at the promotion to what she conceived to be its due place in the control of society, of the principles of which woman is the especial representative, than at the promotion of women themselves.

(…)

            Neither in the acquisition nor in the conduct of her magazine was she influenced by commercial ends. Her principles were everything, and her adherence to them proved fatal to the enterprise. It was not that those essentials of journalistic success, advertisements, were wanting. On the contrary, the supply was ample for such purpose. But, as proprietor, she insisted on editing her advertising as well as her literary columns, and rigidly excluded notices of any wares which failed to meet her approval. Preparations of meats, unhygienic articles of apparel, deleterious cosmetics – in fact, whatever involved death in the procuring or ministered to death in the using was banned and barred, regardless of monetary results. Her manager, alarmed at the prospect which he too surely foresaw, remonstrated earnestly but vainly. She was inflexible. And so it came that, after a two years’ trial and a loss of several hundred pounds, the incompatibility of the standard of journalistic morality which she proposed to herself with commercial success became too obvious to be disregarded, and the enterprise was abandoned. The experience gained, however, was regarded by her as more than compensating the outlay. It was another step in her education for whatever was before her. And her magazine had served at least one notable end, for in its columns had been sounded the first note of the crusade which has since been waged against the atrocities of the physiological laboratory. It was in the exercise of her functions as editor of The Lady’s Own Paper that she became aware of the existence of vivisection.” (pp. 16-20)

[Anna Kingsford – Her Life, Letters, Diary and Work. Edward Maitland. Two volumes. 3^rd Edition, edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1913. Vol. I, 442 pp.]

 

            “In some respects, Mrs. Kingsford was the most remarkable woman I have known. I have never known a woman so exquisitely beautiful as she who cultivated her brain so assiduously. I have never known a woman so courted and flattered by men so loyal to the interests of women. I have never known a woman in whom the dual nature that is more or less perceptible in every human creature was so strongly marked – so sensuous, so feminine on the one hand; so spirituelle, so imaginative, on the other hand.

            “It was in the season of 1873 that I was introduced to Mrs. Kingsford by Mrs. George Sims, the mother of the well-known author. I was then only eighteen, and Mrs. Kingsford was twenty-six. I find recorded in my Diary (for I had leisure to keep Diaries then) that I on that occasion thought Mrs. Kingsford ‘the most faultlessly beautiful woman I ever beheld; her hair is like the sunlight, her features are exquisite, and her complexion – I can use no other term but faultless – not a spot, not a flaw, not a shade!’ Thus I fell in love with her face on the spot. Of her opinions and character I already knew some favourable facts. She had just had a brief experience of editing and owning a weekly paper devoted to what both she and I considered the best interests of our own sex. She had shown both judgment and courage as an editor, as well as a singular fairness to people of opposite views from her own. On the occasion of our first meeting, Miss Downing (then a well-known speaker on the woman’s suffrage platform; dead now some years) objected to the idea that women must not eat heartily; that women themselves, as she regretfully remarked, thought it unladylike to eat two eggs for breakfast. ‘No one, man or woman, ought to eat two eggs for breakfast,’ replied Mrs. Kingsford. Hereupon I told her that I had clearly perceived her vegetarian views in her paper, and that I had therefore much admired her for printing a vehement attack on the practice from the pen of Miss Jex-Blake, M.D. ‘I am glad you appreciated it,’ said Mrs. Kingsford, ‘for to print it was the hardest struggle I ever had in my life.’ It was certainly very broad-minded and generous.

            “Miss Frances Power Cobbe, Madame Bodichon, Mrs. Henry Kingsley, and many other notable ladies contributed to Mrs. Kingsford paper; but it did not pay, and after losing a good deal of money over it she gave it up. In the next year, 1874, she began the study of medicine.” (p. 372)

[Anna Kingsford – Her Life, Letters, Diary and Work. Edward Maitland. Two volumes. 3^rd Edition, edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1913. Vol. II, 466 pp.]

 

           Este material foi copiado a nosso pedido pelo Serviço de Cópias de Imagens da Universidade de Oxford, das coleções na Biblioteca “The Bodleian”, da Universidade de Oxford.

           Nossos sinceros agradecimentos ao Sr. Ralph Johnson, da Inglaterra, que encontrou e solicitou as cópias destes raros e valiosos documentos históricos.

           A seguir temos os links para o texto completo dos 12 números do The Lady’s Own Paper, em inglês, no formato Pdf:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                             CÓPIAS DE 12 NÚMEROS DO

                          THE LADY’S OWN PAPER
               (JORNAL DA PRÓPRIA MULHER)

 

1 – Outubro, 5, 1872.

2 – Outubro, 12, 1872.

3 – Outubro, 19, 1872.

4 – Outubro, 26, 1872.

5 – Novembro, 2, 1872.

6 – Novembro, 9, 1872.

7 – Novembro, 16, 1872.

8 – Novembro, 23, 1872.

9 – Novembro, 30, 1872.

10 – Dezembro, 7, 1872.

11 – Dezembro, 14, 1872.

12 – Dezembro, 21, 1872.

 

 

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