Miriam Margolyes on Bluestockings

While Miriam Margolyes was recording the current Book of the Week, Bluestockings, it became clear that the text had particular meaning for her because she had been a Bluestocking herself. Producer Justine Willett writes:

Cambridge University is celebrating its 800th anniversary this year. And on this week's Book of the Week, you can hear award-winning actress Miriam Margolyes reading Jane Robinson's Bluestockings, the remarkable story of how the first British women went on to get a university education. Miriam, herself a former Newnham College gal, in the early 60s, found reading the book took her back took her back to those extraordinary days at Cambridge, where she shone in the Footlights, made life-long friends, and embraced eccentricity by smoking a pipe...

After the recording, Miriam recorded a few words about Bluestockings:

• The picture shows Newnham College for Women in 1871. It's from Cornell University Library's photostream and it's used under licence.



• Bluestockings is on BBC Radio 4 at 0945 (repeated at 0030) all week. Listen again to today's episode here.