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The Portico has first editions of many well-known female writers of the nineteenth century, such as Elizabeth Gaskell or George Eliot, but it also has work by female art historians, the work of women artists amongst its pages, translators, historians and far more. This talk, illustrated by books in the Portico's collection, takes us on a journey through the reading habits and friend of one mid Victorian female artist Ann Mary Severn Newton. It will uncover writers she read, such as Anna Brownell Jameson, or knew, such as the translator of philosophy, Frances Bunsen. these women forged a differnt path for themselves that was a long way from the Angel in the House stereotype.

Our Creative Producer and cultural historian Dr Debbie Challis will guide us through the varied lives of these professional women, starting with the illustrations of Ann Mary Severn Newton herself in one of the Portico's travel books.