From Amazon
Florence Deeks--spinster, Toronto resident, amateur historian--had always dreamed of writing a book. Well into middle age, during the autumn of 1914, she set for herself a vastly ambitious project: to write "a different kind of history, a history of the world" that would highlight the contributions and accomplishments of women from the beginning of history to the present. Four years later, she submitted her manuscript,
The Web, to Macmillan and Company in Canada. Eight months later, the manuscript was rejected and returned.
The Web was never published.
In 1920, H.G. Wells--novelist, outspoken "social prophet," and well-known philanderer--published his best-selling The Outline of History, a sweeping, massive work of world history that he claimed to have written in less than two years. The release of The Outline by Macmillan soon touched off one of the most protracted and dramatic legal cases in the history of publishing. Convinced that Wells had plagiarized her manuscript, Florence Deeks filed a $500,000 suit against Wells and the publisher. Deeks pursued her case at great expense and against considerable odds for the better part of eight years.
Historian A.B. McKillop tells the story of--and challenges--the verdict of Deeks vs. Wells. Weaving together the lives of Deeks, Wells, his wife and mistresses, The Spinster and the Prophet transforms the history of a lawsuit into an extended meditation on what determines who is granted a voice: "... it is a story of who gets to write history and proclaim its truths in the public sphere... about private truths hidden within walls and behind curtains." Exhaustively researched and compassionately written, McKillop's work asks important questions about gender, power, and the making of history in the first decades of the 20th century. --Svenja Soldovieri
Review
"A fabulous tale about a nondescript spinster in Toronto and a literary giant in London…The story of their relationship says much about the bygone century but also speaks to our own age and mood. This is a book with profound implications; it is also a wonderful read."
–Modris Eksteins
