Mary Chamberlain’s vivid social and oral history of an isolated village in the Cambridgeshire Fens was the first book ever published by Virago.
Told through the voices and lives of women, whose memories span over one hundred years, it provides a unique portrait of a working-class, rural community where intermarriage was common, most inhabitants lived all their lives in the village, and, until the middle of the 20th century, a single family owned almost all the land.
This 50th anniversary edition is released as a Virago Modern Classic with a new introduction by Alexandra Harris.
Fenwomen: A Portrait of Women in an English Village by Mary Chamberlain is published on 11 September, 2025.
You may be interested in Mary’s related Historia feature, Memories of Virago.
She’s also written The stigma of illegitimacy: forced adoption and The Partisan, socialist cafe and creative centre.
For more historical books, have a look at our list of over 190 publications released this year.
