This is a fascinating story and equally an important piece of social history – deserving a modern audience. But written in a language that reads like a period piece, No Surrender was ready to be updated.

No Surrender by Sophie Rickard published by Selfmadehero No Surrender by Sophie Rickard published by Selfmadehero

Anyone who enjoyed The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists will find No Surrender to be a perfect sister-volume, both in the authenticity of the adaptation and the historical sensitivity, humour and warmth of Scarlett’s art. Our graphic novel of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists has gone down well with people who love the original, and with people who’d never heard of it before,” says Scarlett. “The graphic storytelling medium has made Tressell’s political ideas accessible to a new generation. It’s a great way to revive older books that deserve more attention.” We have begun to think of the 1910s as ‘our era’ and relish the task of world-building in an authentic way,” says Scarlett. “Design, style and subtle social cues about relative prosperity are all part of the book’s richness. We have to think about things like lighting – electricity, gas, or candles? – and transport – motor car, horse or walking? – in different ways without getting carried away with historical detail.”Shedding – Anastasia Hiorns’ Abstract Comics Don’t So Much Communicate a Narrative as Provide a Catalyst for One November 1, 2023 As they saw the success of their work translating Tressell into another literary form, Maud’s book came on their radar. Constance Maud’s suffragette novel No Surrender, first published in 1911, isn’t what I would call an enticing read, however authentic a record it may be of its author’s times (Maud, the daughter of a Surrey rector, joined the Women’s Freedom League in 1908, and thereafter participated enthusiastically in the same kind of peaceful civil disobedience as her characters). While it’s true that Emily Wilding Davison, the woman who would later be trampled beneath the King’s horse at Epsom, adored it, feeling that it breathed the very “spirit of our women’s movement”, most modern readers tend to find it plodding and cliched, its story never quite flaring to life. No Surrender, they felt, could be tweaked to bring Maud’s message to an audience 110 years after it was written. Finding ways to update it the story without losing its power was key, the sisters say.

Constance Maud’s No Surrender: A Graphic Novel by Scarlett

Brilliant … utterly irresistible” Rachel Cooke, Guardian/Observer Graphic Novel of the Month, November 2022 Hailed by Emily Wilding Davison as “a book which breathes the very spirit of our Women’s Movement”, the fast paced story interweaves the lives of women from all classes working together to bring about change. Our hero Jenny is a small but fierce Lancashire textile mill worker who puts principle before everything. The pair are recent arrivals in the graphic novel world and are planning a third political tome from the same era.No Surrender was nominated in last year’s Broken Frontier Awards in the Best Graphic Novel category. A book that still has much to say a century on and one that in these dark times is a reminder that the fight for civil rights is a never-ending one. No Surrender is like a sister volume to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists,” says Scarlett. “Maud was an active suffragette, writing fiction in the same era about her authentic experience of living a marginalised life. While The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists examined the arguments for and against socialism, No Surrender explores the battle for equality, how women were regarded, and the ethics of civil disobedience.” Five Months on Earth – Joe Stone’s Versatility Comes to the Fore in this Autobio Story of Mental Health and a Kitten Named Earthling November 1, 2023

novel idea | Camden New Journal A novel idea | Camden New Journal

It was read as a call to arms, told through the story of mill worker Jenny Clegg, who lives in a northern industrial town. The Lost Loiners – Anna Readman Lends an Unlikely Humanity to the Monstrous in Her Troll Illustration Zine October 31, 2023 Jenny Clegg is a wonderful working-class hero,” says Sophie. “We were drawn to her vitality and turn of phrase because of our childhoods. No Surrender was written in part as a recruiting tool for the suffrage movement, and the way it explores things from the point of view of all kinds of women from all walks of life adds to the sense of unity. Jenny, Mary and Alice all have individual strengths and challenges, and there is something there to relate to.”Five Months on Earth – Joe Stone’s Versatility Comes to the Fore in this Autobio Story of Mental Health and a Kitten Named Earthling