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Ethel Carnie Holdsworth contributed these short pieces to The Cotton Factory Times, a weekly newspaper published from Ashton-under-Lyne, outside Manchester. Anecdotal vignettes, reflecting the social structure of mill workers' lives, they date from 1906, when she was still working as a mill girl, until after World War I. They are written in local dialect, adding depth to their illustration of the difficulties of mill-workers and their families, rather than attempting to impose an alien literary style.

This first collected edition of Ethel Carnie Holdsworth's fairy tales contributes significantly to both our knowledge of her work and the history of the fairy tale as a genre. As a working-class woman writer, her stories represent work, class, and gender in ways that are startlingly different to what is found in many well-known fairy tales. Speaking out of the experiences of her class and gender, her tales imagine magical worlds and heroes and heroines whose goals move far beyond the individualist success found in traditional fairy tales.

Among over eighty articles in this volume are Mitchison's earliest known published non-fiction, her thoughts on motherhood and children - and her contributions to the debate on contraception, including the pamphlet "Comments On Birth Control" published separately in 1930.As well as the text of her editorial for the collection of essays "An Outline for Boys and Girls and their Parents" (1932), and the full text of the extended essay "The Home and a Changing Civilisation" (1934) there are humorous stories from 'The Passing Show' and some of the nascent journeys into left-wing political expression.The second half of the volume takes time to reflect on past occasions, on her early life in Edinburgh and Oxford, and on family at Cloan.

Naomi Mitchison was born in Edinburgh, and from at least the late 1930s onwards she was not only passionately interested in Scottish landscape and history but involved in Scottish politics and current affairs. A first glance at the pieces collected here might suggest that her Scotland comprised only the West Highlands which she knew so well. Much of her journalism stems from her activity as a member of such public bodies as Argyll County Council and the advisory Highland Panel: the problems she encountered, and helped to solve, find their way into her writing. But she has a wider vision than that would imply. She is concerned, particularly in later years, with Scotland's place as a small nation, still at the time governed from Westminster, in a world where global politics and finance - NATO and oil - seem to hold almost unquestioned power (but she asks the questions)Scotland's identity is indeed an overriding concern. As early as the 1940s and as late as the 1970s, Mitchison reiterates the virtues of 'the Highland way of life', an almost indefinable ethos which she returns to again and again. Her championship of this idea can lead her into paths which are perhaps unexpected, given her general support of progress and scientific advance. As in the Carradale volume, it has seemed a good idea to group the pieces by topic, with a certain inevitable crossover arising from Mitchison's digressive, irrepressible writing style.

Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999) wrote, during her long life, in more or less every genre one could name: fiction, essays, drama, children's books, and poetry. Much of her writing has been brought back into print, but no sustained effort has so far been made to collect and consider her poetry. This volume is a first step towards that.Only two poetry collections were published during Mitchison's lifetime: The Laburnum Branch in 1926 and The Cleansing of the Knife in 1978. Many more poems are to be found in her volumes of short stories, since it was her custom to intersperse stories with poems, which sometimes expand on the themes of the stories and often have a bearing on her experiences and emotions at the time.

The British know nothing about Botswana because it seldom gets a mention in the press; and because it's 'simply not interesting'. So says Alfred Dube, Botswana's High Commissioner in London. As a generalisation, he may be right. But turn the coin and realise that many thousands of people in Britain, with no direct contact with this country, owe their knowledge of it to a single person, Naomi Mitchison, its one time, self appointed, prolific publicist and unofficial ambassador.Articles rarely appear in the British press today for the simple reason that Naomi is in her mid 90s and no longer provides them. Unsurprisingly, no one of equivalent abilities and interests has stepped forward to fill her shoes. Perhaps they realised what little value the government placed on Naomi's earlier efforts. She may have been an irritant to many. But how many of the newly independent states of Africa had a friend like her? Someone who had the contacts, the ability and the motivation to argue a point, paint an image or present a human need. -- Sandy Grant, 1995

Naomi Mitchison travelled extensively outside Britain, writing freely about her adventures and tribulations, her disturbing experiences and those of others. This volume includes autobiographical material and newspaper reporting, as well as more detached observations, written from 1929 through to the mid-1980s, and covers every continent except South America. Geographically, the articles are divided into sections on Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, The Mediterranean and Middle East, and The United States. A broadly chronological arrangement is followed within each section. Many pieces debate, compare and contrast topics or circumstances, and their location might be considered arbitrary.Botwana (Bechunaland) occupied much of her attention for a time, and her writing there is collected, separately, in a separate volume.

This volume covers from 1935 to 1993, over a wide range of topics. Often serious, with passion, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, Mitchison looks at issues of the day, and reflects, usually critically, on how society is being affected by current affairs, usually for the worse.Articles rarely confine themselves to a narrow perspective.The volume includes the entire text of the extended essay The Kingdom of Heaven, originally published separately in 1939, the editorial text of What the Human Race Is Up To, published in 1962, and the pamphlet Sittlichkeit (1975).

With almost seven hundred articles included in this series, it is not surprising to learn that political thinking, anecdote, frustration and reflection appear across the spectrum and therefore are not exclusive to this volume.Those brought together here - dating from as early as 1923 in Fascist Italy, through more than 60 years, to the lack of women in the U.K Parliament - show an underlying belief which educates and informs much of her other writing.This volume also contains the full text of The Moral Basic of Politics, originally published separately in 1938, on the eve of World War II.

"If I had been told that I would get into a position where, in common with 30,000 other people, I would love and honour this young man as my Chief, I would have said this was impossible for a European intellectual, even with a Highland background. This book shows just how it happened." -NMOn its first publication, in 1966, Geoffrey Household wrote:Now, here really is a love story, and I'll tumble over myself, with the enthusiasm of Mrs. Mitchison's own sentences, to imagine her reasons why we should read it. Because she is a woman with the brains of a Haldane, the spiritual insight of a Highlander and the passionate loyalty of a mother. Because she understands Bechuanaland and her beloved tribe. Because she longs to pass on the smell of the smoke and cattle in the evening, the touch of the arm of her adopted son and nominal Chief around her shoulders. To which we can only answer: one of them would do, dear Mma (Setswana for Ma and presumably pronounced much the same), but to be offered the lot is riches indeed.It all started with a meeting of eyes at - of all places!-a British Council party.

This book is for whom? Not for children - too complicated - neither for adults, too childish. But perhaps for adults who managed to keep their child spirit and particularly those who travelled the Camino.When Peter and I decided to walk the Compostela Way, we were not in any way sure to be able to make it. We were told that as true Parisians we would not be able to cope with the many privations, lack of comfort and tiredness we would encounter.But taking up the challenge, we decided to make the journey.We had both been around the world, yet never have we loved so much a journey as our walk to COMPOSTELAWe had formidable encounters with 'perigrines' coming from different lands, yet despite having shared many joyful and merry dinners we noticed how evasive most were about their deep motivation to go on the pilgrinage.In 1987, UNESCO, voted the Camino 'The First European Cultural Itinerary'

In her lifetime, Naomi Mitchison wrote over two hundred and fifty pieces of fiction which can be described as short stories. Many of these were brought together in the stand-alone collections: When the Bough Breaks (1924), Barbarian Stories (1929), The Hostages (1930), Boys and Girls and Gods (1931), African Heroes (1968), The Brave Nurse (1977), Images of Africa (1980), Beyond This Limit (1986), What Do You Think Yourself? (1982), or with poems in these volumes: Black Sparta (1928), The Delicate Fire (1933), The Fourth Pig (1936), Five Men and a Swan (1957), and A Girl Must Live (1990). Others appeared as contributions to a wide variety of magazines.These are brought together here for the first time..

Naomi Mitchison spent many years visiting, then living with, the Bakgatla of Botswana. During that time, she wrote a great deal about the tribal structure, social culture and behaviour of the population. Some of that writing was in the form of these stories collected here, ostensibly for children. This was her opportunity to describe in simple detail the problems and difficulties in the day-to-day life of ordinary people. Gathered here are the collections Ketse and the African Chief (1965), Friends and Enemies (1966), The Family at Ditlabeng (1968), Sunrise Tomorrow (1973), Snake! (1976) and The Vegetable War (1980), together with Modise and the Donkeys (1975), The Kid (1975), The Little Sister (1976), The Wild Dogs (1976) The Brave Nurse, For Her Country, and Letsei and Sekgwari (1977), and the longer A Mochudi Family from 1965.

In 1919 Ethel Carnie Holdsworth published her third novel, The Taming of Nan.At this point in her career, Carnie Holdsworth was an established author with one notable success, Helen of Four Gates (1917), to her credit. As was typical of her, she did not try to replicate her recent success; instead, The Taming of Nan explored new territory, addressing the issues of fair compensation for a workplace injury and working-class domestic violence. In addition to addressing these societal problems, The Taming of Nan's central family grouping consists of three original characters that reinterpret accepted working-class tropes: Nan Cherry, a working-class virago; her husband Bill, a stolid family man; and their daughter, Polly, a teenaged mill girl who wants nothing more than to have a good time. These characters develop in a context of intergenerational family ties as well as a widespread community whose advice and traditions provide a fertile context for their family drama.

Ethel Carnie Holdsworth's 1925 novel, This Slavery, is a radical feminist and socialist tale of love, loss, poverty and politics. The action follows two sisters, mill-girls Hester and Rachel Martin, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when a fire at the mill leaves them unemployed. As the material poverty of their home-life deepens and the girls are forced to confront the difficulties of their economic circumstances, Hester and Rachel make romantic and political choices that will place them on opposite sides of the great class divide.