/dead/ - Post-Left

Thread dedicated to the discussion, reading and shitposting surrounding this forgotten and deeply tragic figure of the early feminist movement in England, later turned Egoist, and in her own words, Archist rather than Anarchist.

Here I'll attach to the OP ,as well as further posts, secondary and tertiary sources, first as complementary to her work, second due to the limitations in filesize for Vichan.

For Primary sources, I'll give you some MEGA links with her collected Journals in which she was Editor/Contributor these will only work for 30 days.

The Freewoman(1911 — 1912):https://mega.nz/file/CbxglRjK#qP70f25AjqFPxcKrTc66GIkyG6uYftwWXv4MCbkMrrk
The New Freewoman(1913):https://mega.nz/file/XeRknbAB#drlmEd32Fv449wTtvGlLdCsxlIBwqS2jt724fbxweZs
The Egoist(1914 — 1919):https://mega.nz/file/6K50wZ7B#elVYbkMV0PMthD3xiTGDg4SDIc2stV-mf3MrK3ZttVE

In 1900 began teaching at Owens College, where she met Christabel Pankhurst and other suffragists. Dora joined and became a leader in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WPSU) by 1908. The following year she resigned as a teacher and became a full time agitator for the WSPU, graduating from suffragist to suffragette. She was sentenced to two months in prison for vandalism in 1909: she refused to wear prison clothes and served her time in the nude, even wriggling out of a straightjacket that had been forced on her. After a hunger strike she was released and continued to agitate. She disrupted political meetings (including a speech by a young Winston Churchill). The WSPU ‘promoted’ her to a clerical position to temper her agitation. Dora, meanwhile, had grown tired of the ‘skirt movement’ and sought a liberty beyond feminism.

In 1911, Dora founded The Freewoman (1911 – 1912), a periodical described by one forgotten nobody as “a disgusting publication… indecent, immoral and filthy.” Financial troubles led to a re-launch as The New Freewoman (1914). And an ever more keen search for liberty led to a re-launch as The Egoist (1914 – 1919).


In the 1920s – 1930s Dora wrote three books: The Definition of the Godhead (1928), The Mysteries of Christianity (1930) and The Philosophy of Time (published only in 1955). During the writing of these books she went from a self-imposed isolation to confinement in a mental hospital, where she spent the remainder of her life.


According to Les Garner: "Apart from the frequent and crucial visits of Harriet Shaw Weaver, Dora's life was indeed isolated." Marsden, funded by Weaver, spent her time writing a proposed seven volume series on philosophy.In 1928 Marsden sent the manuscript for The Definition of the Godhead to Harriet Shaw Weaver, the novelist, Margaret Storm Jameson and the philosopher, Samuel Alexander. Weaver was critical but Jameson believed it to be a very important work. Alexander replied that he was "astonished by the mass of knowledge you have acquired… yet I do not think you should try to publish it in its present form. Marsden wrote in the introduction: "This work is the first volume of a philosophy which claims to affect the intellectual rehabilitation of the dogmas of Christian theology in terms of the characters of the first principles of physics, i.e. Space and Time… (It is an attempt ) to solve the riddle of the first principles solutions are required to those age old problems of philosophy and theology which impart into human culture its heavily tangled undergrowth.Copies were sent to George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell and a large number of university professors. The book was also sent to journals and newspapers but it received only negative reviews. The Definition of the Godhead sold only six copies, one of these was to her friend, Rona Robinson. Her biographer, Les Garner, pointed out that her book was unpopular with those who had been involved in The Freewoman and The New Freewoman: "Dora's views on sex and the need for abstinence for those seeking the truth of the universe were, yet again, a thinly disguised justification of her own life since at least 1921." The Mysteries of Christianity was published by the Egoist Press in 1930. After the poor sales of The Definition of the Godhead, Harriet only printed 500 copies and of these, only 100 were bound.Soon after the book was published, Dora Marsden suffered a mental breakdown. Les Garner pointed out that by 1931 "Dora's physical and mental health was poor. Her moods fluctuated between delusive optimism about further volumes and a rational acceptance that her work was over." In 1932 Dora told Harriet that she planned to begin work on a third volume. "Harriet, who had abandoned any plans to back and publish Dora again, knew her friend's hopes were delusory."On 26th November 1935 Marsden became a patient at the Crichton Royal Hospital in Dumfries. The hospital commented that she "was not able to communicate rationally, was severely depressed and was diagnosed as suffering from deep melancholia.For the last twelve years she has lived the life of a recluse alone with her books and her studies. She felt she has found something of great importance in the world of thought - a criticism of philosophy from the earliest days onwards - this work did not create the impression she wanted and she became depressed. In summer 1934 the patient denied herself sufficient food, cut herself off from others and pulled down her blinds to prevent anyone seeing her…. Since the end of June 1935 she has become more and more depressed."Dora Marsden remained in Crichton Royal Hospital for the rest of her life. Occasionally she talked about returning to her planned seven volume series of books on philosophy, but most of the time she "settled into her routine of sewing, reading and silence". In 1955 she even arranged for some of her early unpublished writings to appear under the title of The Philosophy of Time .Dora Marsden died of a heart attack in the hospital on 13th December 1960

For more of her Biography: https://spartacus-educational.com/WmarsdenD.htm