In 1877, Annie Besant took the stand. She was on trial for selling an "obscene publication" – a pamphlet designed to educate the masses on birth control. Author Michael Meyer tells Ellie Cawthorne about how this sensational legal case lit a fire under Victorian society, and why the woman at the centre of it decided to represent herself in the courtroom.
(Ad) Michael Meyer is the author of A Dirty, Filthy Book: Sex, Scandal, and One Woman’s Fight in the Victorian Trial of the Century WH Allen, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dirty-Filthy-Book-Victorians-1877-1888/dp/0753559927/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty
The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: everything you wanted to know
Dinosaurs: a Victorian obsession
Tiger Tamer | 6. battling against Bovril
How was Elizabeth I shaped by her childhood?
Joan of Arc: life of the week
Leftovers: how our ancestors battled food waste
WW1's eastern front: everything you wanted to know
Eric 'Winkle' Brown: Britain's most extraordinary pilot
Tiger Tamer | 5. crazy about wheelbarrows
Will the real Jesus please stand up?
Mary Wollstonecraft: life of the week
The Capetians: everything you wanted to know
Lothar II vs Theutberga: a marriage scandal that shook the ninth century
Tiger Tamer | 4. celebrity pedestrian
A political earthquake: Britain's first Labour government
James VI and I: life of the week
From Russia to Texas: the search for a Jewish homeland
British Redcoats: everything you wanted to know
The West's attempt to crush Bolshevik Russia
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Dan Snow’s History Hit
Front Row
Not Just the Tudors
The Ancients
Gone Medieval