The First Five Lives of Annie Besant by Arthur H. Nethercot (review)

1961 BOOK REVIEWS 105 structure and play production. If the reader is occasionally dissatisfied with a lack of depth in crucial areas, he has much to be thankful for in the book's comprehensive breadth. EDWARD GROFF Pennsylvania State College THE FIRST FIVE LIVES OF ANNIE BESANT, by Arthur H. Nethercot, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1960, 395 pp. Price $7.50. Born in 1847, Mrs. Annie Besant (the name, she said, rhymes with pleasant) lived nntil 1933. In this volume Professor Nethercot of Northwestern recounts the first half of the remarkable life of this extraordinary woman. This first volume of a two volume biography ends in 1893 as Mrs. Besant left England for India to be the leader of the Theosophist movement, to be the friend of Gandhi, and to be, for a time, president of the Indian National Congress. Mr. Nethercot fully justifies the unusual title he gives this first volume, for Mrs. Besant did leadconsecutively , not Simultaneously-five distinct and eventful lives. In the first life the young Annie Wood, sheltered, scholarly, and charitable, was led by her interest in religion to marry a young Church of England clergyman . Like other romantic Victorian young ladies, she idealized the clergy. The marriage was a failure and we get a vivid picture of the unhappiness of the couple. The husband was stubborn, demanded submission to his authority; the wife was shy and quick to anger; the wife was completely ignorant of sex and could never forget her first nights of marriage. In her second life the unhappy young wife began slowly to feel various religious doubts. She turned to the great Dr. Pusey before she finally gave up her religion: When she asked if he would recommend some books to throw light on the subject, his only answer was, "No, no; you have read too much already. You must pray; you must pray" (p. 48). Mrs. Besant was forced to leave her husband. We learn a good deal in a moving way about Victorian law as it applied to marriage when Mrs. Besant obtained a legal separation. Finally, sometime later, she lost control even of her children. She had the problem of self-support. She wrote; she became close to Charles Bradlaugh, the great leader of secularism and free thought. She learned that she was an effective speaker and became a leader in the movements for free thought, freedom of expression, birth control, feminism, and radical politics. In her third career she became interested in science, was one of the first women to study at the University of London, and was a vigorous supporter of Bradlaugh's efforts to be seated, despite his atheism, in Parliament. In 1884 she developed an interest in socialism, joined the Fabian Society, and became a close friend of G. B. Shaw. Mrs. Besant, in fact, was responsible for his beginning his career as an art, music, and drama critic. In her various publications she also printed much of his early fiction. She was concerned about labor organization, succeeded in creating one of the earliest effective unions, and was elected to the London school board. Slowly she shifted away from the Fabian Society to the more radical Social Democratic Federation. In 1889 her fifth life came suddenly. She became a Theosophist, a chief lieutenant of Madame Blavatsky. Mr. Nethercot doubts that Shaw's recollections of his shock at the discovery of Mrs. Besant's conversion are accurate. Nevertheless , the shift from rationalist materialism and free thinking to the mysticism and occultism of Theosophy was a major one. As in every other shift in her public career, however, Mrs. Besant quickly took a position of leadership. As 106 MODERN DRAMA May life number five came to an end in 1893, Mrs. Besant left England for her new and equally vigorous life in India. Throughout her career Mrs. Besant was indefatigable in her organizing, publishing , writing, and speaking. Coming home one time after midnight from a meeting of busmen whom she was trying to organize, Mrs. Besant said to her friend Burrows: "'Herbert, I wonder why on earth we go on doing this.' He thought and rendered his only answer, 'We can't help itl'" (p...