Insurgence. Poems. Decorations by Bessie J. Mitchell.

Bookseller Notes

The first book of both press and author Lambert, who published two further collections with the press before curtailing her poetic career, later gained a reputation as a cookery writer, specialising in Latin American and Caribbean cuisine; born in England, her family emigrated to Australia in her youth, where she published poetry and journalism in newspapers and magazines, including the disruptive 'Angry Penguins' of Max Harris, with whom she collaborated. She later returned to the UK, and then to the Americas meeting her husband, the UN diplomat Cesar Ortiz Tinoco, in New York, and travelling extensively alongside him throughout the following decades. Her early interest in radical politics of the left is reflected in the poems on the Spanish Civil War that open this collection, which is characterised by a certain verve throughout.The Viking Press, the private press of illustrator Bessie J. Mitchell, was established expressly for the purpose of publishing Lambert's work it was active for five years, during the Second World War, until paper shortages made the venture unviable. At the time of its foundation, Mitchell was announced in the Sydney Morning Herald as 'Australia's first woman publisher' all of the books it published were designed and illustrated by her, and the work often reflected her own feminism.