AustLit

'Carmen Callil was born in Melbourne in 1938 and since 1960 has lived in England where in 1973 she founded Virago, a vigorous feminist publishing house. The original Latin meaning of ‘‘virago’’ was ­‘‘female warrior’’, but the term has acquired strong overtones of ‘‘angry witch’’.' (Introduction)

'Scanning my bookshelves, I see a dozen or more of the distinctive green spines of Virago Press. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the Virago imprint was a guarantee of good reading by women writers whose works were rediscovered and sent out to find a new public. I had read Margaret Atwood, Rosamond Lehmann, and Elizabeth Taylor for the first time in hardcovers; Virago made them new. Kate O’ Brien’s The Land of Spices, banned in Ireland, had been hard to get. Here it was in Virago green, with a perceptive introduction to put it in context.' (Introduction)