The Eighth Annual Report of the WPSU The Woman's Press 1914 suffragettes

WOMEN'S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION (WSPU). Eighth Annual Report. London: The Woman's Press, 1914.
 
Octavo. 70pp. including wrapperS. Original printed wrappers in the WSPU colours of purple, white and green, with the WSPU monogram at the head and a striking Joan of Arc emblem to the upper cover. Very good. Some light handling, scattered spotting and marking to the wrappers, with minor creasing at the corners and a diagonal brown mark across the rear wrapper. Staples perished with papers sat loose inside wrappers. Internally clean and well preserved.
 
The eighth annual report of the Women's Social and Political Union, covering the year ending 28 February 1914 and recording the organisation at the height of its militant campaign.
The report includes detailed sections on the Union's anti-Government policy, militancy, imprisonment, forcible feeding and the operation of the Cat and Mouse Act. A substantial list of suffragette prisoners records names, sentences and treatment, including Emmeline Pankhurst, Kitty Marion, Annie Kenney, Rachel Peace, Mary Richardson and Sylvia Pankhurst. There is also an account of Emmeline Pankhurst's American tour, including her detention at Ellis Island and subsequent release, together with the statement that the tour produced £4,500 for the WSPU campaign fund.  The report is especially notable for its unapologetic discussion of militancy and Government repression, and for its detailed account of hunger striking, forcible feeding and the treatment of imprisoned suffragettes in 1913-14.
 
The upper wrapper is particularly striking, using the WSPU colours and a Joan of Arc emblem, a figure frequently invoked by the militant movement as a symbol of courage, sacrifice and female resistance. The rear wrapper advertises The Suffragette, the official organ of the WSPU, edited by Christabel Pankhurst. An important primary source for the WSPU in the final months before the outbreak of the First World War.