Carmen Callil (1938–2022): an appreciation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay is a personal appreciation of Carmen Callil, the founder of Virago, who died in October 2022. She was a witty but formidable woman with a passion for literature who sought to change the world through books. Virago’s early precarious finances were redeemed by the Modern Classics series, with their distinctive livery and guarantee of good literature, satisfying an appetite for knowledge and literature in an untapped audience. Alongside forgotten authors she published new ones, launched a list of non-fiction classics and offered an outlet for a generation of young, feminist historians. It is hard to remember a time before Virago. Or a time before feminist history, for it was Virago who helped put it on the map. She set out to make a difference, and she did.