Ann Kennedy Smith
@akennedysmith.bsky.social
Author, critic and researcher. Reviews & essays in TLS, Guardian, History Today, ODNB. Writing about books & women's history in my Cambridge Ladies' Dining Society newsletter. https://akennedysmith.substack.com/
‘We went to see the red picture & I thought it quite horrid, so fierce and so dirty’, Emma Darwin wrote about Richmond's portrait of her husband Charles Darwin. ‘However it is under a glass & v. high up so no one can see it’.
open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...
open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...
October 19, 2025 at 7:43 PM
‘We went to see the red picture & I thought it quite horrid, so fierce and so dirty’, Emma Darwin wrote about Richmond's portrait of her husband Charles Darwin. ‘However it is under a glass & v. high up so no one can see it’.
open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...
open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...
Autumn's around the corner, and among the fallen leaves here's the new Slightly Foxed magazine with my piece on Lucy M. Boston's charming memoir, Memory in a House (1973) @slightlyfoxed.bsky.social
August 27, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Autumn's around the corner, and among the fallen leaves here's the new Slightly Foxed magazine with my piece on Lucy M. Boston's charming memoir, Memory in a House (1973) @slightlyfoxed.bsky.social
Back to Dublin for a flying visit last weekend, and captured by the calm blue beauty of the Liffey on a summer's evening. The grasshopper-green neon lights are reflected in the water and in a night bus speeding along the quays.
June 13, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Back to Dublin for a flying visit last weekend, and captured by the calm blue beauty of the Liffey on a summer's evening. The grasshopper-green neon lights are reflected in the water and in a night bus speeding along the quays.
Agreed! The young Harriet Walter is a hard act to follow, but not impossible...
June 8, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Agreed! The young Harriet Walter is a hard act to follow, but not impossible...
The boys are back in town (& enjoying seasonal grazing on Midsummer Common, Cambridge UK today).
May 14, 2025 at 9:37 PM
The boys are back in town (& enjoying seasonal grazing on Midsummer Common, Cambridge UK today).
'Lying in bed at night, she watched the bright stellate lights adorn the shelves of the room, a complete and private universe of living stars.' Delighted to have @sarahjlonsdale.bsky.social as my Substack guest this week, writing about British entomologist Evelyn Cheesman (1881-1969).
May 12, 2025 at 11:27 AM
'Lying in bed at night, she watched the bright stellate lights adorn the shelves of the room, a complete and private universe of living stars.' Delighted to have @sarahjlonsdale.bsky.social as my Substack guest this week, writing about British entomologist Evelyn Cheesman (1881-1969).
'‘There had been bad times in France, but all in all it had been a magnificent and memorable experience’.
Journey's End author R.C. Sherriff gives the First World War a five-star review in his memoir No Leading Lady (1968)
Journey's End author R.C. Sherriff gives the First World War a five-star review in his memoir No Leading Lady (1968)
April 24, 2025 at 9:31 AM
'‘There had been bad times in France, but all in all it had been a magnificent and memorable experience’.
Journey's End author R.C. Sherriff gives the First World War a five-star review in his memoir No Leading Lady (1968)
Journey's End author R.C. Sherriff gives the First World War a five-star review in his memoir No Leading Lady (1968)
‘Women’s friendships were not memorialised in stone or glorified in reams of soaring poetry. But they were there.’
Looking forward to this nuanced history of revolutionary female friendships, by Tiffany Watt Smith @faberbooks.bsky.social
Looking forward to this nuanced history of revolutionary female friendships, by Tiffany Watt Smith @faberbooks.bsky.social
March 26, 2025 at 5:08 PM
‘Women’s friendships were not memorialised in stone or glorified in reams of soaring poetry. But they were there.’
Looking forward to this nuanced history of revolutionary female friendships, by Tiffany Watt Smith @faberbooks.bsky.social
Looking forward to this nuanced history of revolutionary female friendships, by Tiffany Watt Smith @faberbooks.bsky.social
Good to be mentioned on this week's TLS cover (though photo of Oliver Sacks + brain is kind of distracting).
March 11, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Good to be mentioned on this week's TLS cover (though photo of Oliver Sacks + brain is kind of distracting).
My short post about the 17-year gestation of the novel that Jane Austen described as her 'darling child.' As a mature writer she had doubts about Pride and Prejudice (1813), first drafted in 1796 when she was 20, Elizabeth Bennett's age.
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/jane-auste...
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/jane-auste...
February 9, 2024 at 6:08 PM
My short post about the 17-year gestation of the novel that Jane Austen described as her 'darling child.' As a mature writer she had doubts about Pride and Prejudice (1813), first drafted in 1796 when she was 20, Elizabeth Bennett's age.
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/jane-auste...
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/jane-auste...
After she finished writing her memoir Period Piece (1952) Gwen Raverat suffered a stroke that left her paralysed on one side. She could no longer practice her woodcuts but continued to paint from her wheelchair on the meadows near her Cambridge home. akennedysmith.substack.com/p/a-cambridg...
January 14, 2024 at 10:04 PM
After she finished writing her memoir Period Piece (1952) Gwen Raverat suffered a stroke that left her paralysed on one side. She could no longer practice her woodcuts but continued to paint from her wheelchair on the meadows near her Cambridge home. akennedysmith.substack.com/p/a-cambridg...
Samuel Beckett found Stratford-on-Avon ‘unspeakable’ and his hired car struggled with demented gradients around Porlock during the English road trip he took with his mother in 1935. I wrote about the Becketts’ unlikely westward journey here:
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/mrs-becket...
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/mrs-becket...
January 9, 2024 at 11:23 PM
Samuel Beckett found Stratford-on-Avon ‘unspeakable’ and his hired car struggled with demented gradients around Porlock during the English road trip he took with his mother in 1935. I wrote about the Becketts’ unlikely westward journey here:
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/mrs-becket...
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/mrs-becket...
My Books of the Year 2023, with memoirs by
Michael Rosen, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and Lucy M. Boston; Laura Freeman on Jim Ede's Kettle's Yard
and Daisy Hay on Joseph Johnson's dining club; and a welcome reissue of Helene Hanff's Letter from New York.
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/books-of-t...
Michael Rosen, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and Lucy M. Boston; Laura Freeman on Jim Ede's Kettle's Yard
and Daisy Hay on Joseph Johnson's dining club; and a welcome reissue of Helene Hanff's Letter from New York.
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/books-of-t...
January 1, 2024 at 8:58 PM
My Books of the Year 2023, with memoirs by
Michael Rosen, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and Lucy M. Boston; Laura Freeman on Jim Ede's Kettle's Yard
and Daisy Hay on Joseph Johnson's dining club; and a welcome reissue of Helene Hanff's Letter from New York.
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/books-of-t...
Michael Rosen, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and Lucy M. Boston; Laura Freeman on Jim Ede's Kettle's Yard
and Daisy Hay on Joseph Johnson's dining club; and a welcome reissue of Helene Hanff's Letter from New York.
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/books-of-t...
‘This is a circular book. It does not begin at the beginning and go on to the end; it is all going on at the same time, sticking out like the spokes of a wheel from the hub, which is me. So it does not matter which chapter is read first or last.’
Gwen Raverat, Period Piece (1952)
Gwen Raverat, Period Piece (1952)
December 17, 2023 at 6:08 PM
‘This is a circular book. It does not begin at the beginning and go on to the end; it is all going on at the same time, sticking out like the spokes of a wheel from the hub, which is me. So it does not matter which chapter is read first or last.’
Gwen Raverat, Period Piece (1952)
Gwen Raverat, Period Piece (1952)
In the 1870s there were shops on King’s Parade in Cambridge called ‘Greef’, ‘Sadd’ and ‘Pain’, apparently. But it would make me very happy if you read my latest cheerful Substack about Louisa Greef & subscribed for FREE.
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/a-cambridg...
November 28, 2023 at 9:43 PM
In the 1870s there were shops on King’s Parade in Cambridge called ‘Greef’, ‘Sadd’ and ‘Pain’, apparently. But it would make me very happy if you read my latest cheerful Substack about Louisa Greef & subscribed for FREE.
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/a-cambridg...
...otherwise! Mainly because Reeves is one of the few to acknowledge the influence of Mary Paley Marshall on our understanding of the economics of industry.
November 26, 2023 at 12:16 PM
...otherwise! Mainly because Reeves is one of the few to acknowledge the influence of Mary Paley Marshall on our understanding of the economics of industry.
My take on The Women Who Made Modern Economics by Rachel Reeves, who doesn't acknowledge all her sources (as @financialtimes.com reported) but it's not a bad book
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/a-cambridg...
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/a-cambridg...
November 26, 2023 at 12:11 PM
My take on The Women Who Made Modern Economics by Rachel Reeves, who doesn't acknowledge all her sources (as @financialtimes.com reported) but it's not a bad book
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/a-cambridg...
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/a-cambridg...
In other, more positive, Dublin news... my post about the 'Steamboat Ladies' who travelled to Trinity College Dublin to be awarded their Oxford and Cambridge degrees
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/steamboat-...
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/steamboat-...
November 24, 2023 at 3:53 PM
In other, more positive, Dublin news... my post about the 'Steamboat Ladies' who travelled to Trinity College Dublin to be awarded their Oxford and Cambridge degrees
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/steamboat-...
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/steamboat-...
@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social 95 years ago, in October 1927, Virginia Woolf gave the Cambridge talk that led to A Room Of One's Own (1928). My piece 'Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf' is about Elsie Duncan-Jones, the brave Newnham College student who invited her there
akennedysmith.com/2023/08/01/n...
akennedysmith.com/2023/08/01/n...
October 30, 2023 at 12:21 PM
@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social 95 years ago, in October 1927, Virginia Woolf gave the Cambridge talk that led to A Room Of One's Own (1928). My piece 'Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf' is about Elsie Duncan-Jones, the brave Newnham College student who invited her there
akennedysmith.com/2023/08/01/n...
akennedysmith.com/2023/08/01/n...
‘I know why I am depressed,’ Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary on the publication day of To the Lighthouse in May 1927. ‘A bad habit of making up the review I should like before reading the review I get.’
akennedysmith.com/2023/10/09/v...
akennedysmith.com/2023/10/09/v...
October 9, 2023 at 4:08 PM
‘I know why I am depressed,’ Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary on the publication day of To the Lighthouse in May 1927. ‘A bad habit of making up the review I should like before reading the review I get.’
akennedysmith.com/2023/10/09/v...
akennedysmith.com/2023/10/09/v...
My dog, and blue skies (sort of) over Cambridge
October 7, 2023 at 12:34 PM
My dog, and blue skies (sort of) over Cambridge
This is very cute - a tiny needle and thread motif beneath the title of 'Connecting Threads' my afterword for Gertrude Trevelyan's 1938 novel WILLIAM'S WIFE (newly published by BoilerHouse press)
www.boilerhouse.press/product-page...
www.boilerhouse.press/product-page...
October 4, 2023 at 9:04 PM
This is very cute - a tiny needle and thread motif beneath the title of 'Connecting Threads' my afterword for Gertrude Trevelyan's 1938 novel WILLIAM'S WIFE (newly published by BoilerHouse press)
www.boilerhouse.press/product-page...
www.boilerhouse.press/product-page...
My dog, sadly contemplating the last days of summer
September 26, 2023 at 5:25 PM
My dog, sadly contemplating the last days of summer
An 1888 Cambridge News advertisement for 'Cycles', 'Ladies' and Gents' Tricycles', 'Cycle Lessons' and... 'Psychos'
#Victorian #Cycling
#Victorian #Cycling
September 23, 2023 at 2:49 PM
An 1888 Cambridge News advertisement for 'Cycles', 'Ladies' and Gents' Tricycles', 'Cycle Lessons' and... 'Psychos'
#Victorian #Cycling
#Victorian #Cycling