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  • Published: 1 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409029182
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496

Monuments And Maidens

The Allegory of the Female Form




'A dazzling and invigorating book' - Guardian

'Why should Truth be a woman? Or Nature? Or Justice? Or Liberty? Not, certainly, because women have been more free, just, truthful, nor even (though this one has a double edge) more natural. Marina Warner sets out to breathe some life into the army of petrified personages that litters western cityscapes... As her book shows, these stony ladies can be persuaded to yield surprisingly interesting answers' - Lorna Sage, Observer

An entertaining and enlightening book about the relationship between allegory and female form from one of the great feminists and cultural historians of our time, Marina Warner.

  • Published: 1 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409029182
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496

About the author

Marina Warner

Marina Warner spent her early years in Cairo, and was educated at a convent in Berkshire, and then in Brussels and London, before studying modern languages at Oxford. She is an internationally acclaimed cultural historian, critic, novelist and short story writer. Her non-fiction works include The Beast to the Blonde, No Go the Bogeyman, Fantastic Metamorphoses and Stranger Magic, while her fiction includes the novels The Lost Father (shortlisted for the Booker Prize), Indigo and The Leto Bundle, and short story collections including Murderers I Have Known. She lectures widely in Europe, the United States and the Middle East and was appointed CBE in 2008.

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Praise for Monuments And Maidens

A book to change the way we see the world, and the place of women in it

Literary Review

An eye-opening and wonderfully readable study

Mary Beard, Daily Express

Even the most sceptical will be struck by the insights, and forced to think about the questions raised. They lead naturally into an exploration of the nature of the feminine itself

Sunday Telegraph

Marina Warner examines three very different uses of the female form: New York's statue of Liberty, the public sculptures of central Paris and the images of Mrs Thatcher favoured by Fleet Street. The latter is one of the most brilliant analyses in the book, displaying Warner's combination of wit and erudition at its most dazzling

Financial Times