THE FIGHTING PANKHURSTS

They really were, as Mr. Mitchell Says, ""surely one of the most remarkable families of females in the history of Britain."" Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters led the Suffragettes of England in their desperate campaign for equal rights and, more than anyone else, they made it succeed. They pioneered direct action tactics, noncooperation, fasting during imprisonment, and didn't shrink from arson or other guerrilla-like means to their noble ends. Mr. Mitchell has told the larger tale long before, in his Women on the Warpath; here he concentrates on the subsequent divergent careers of these four crusaders. Emmeline went on to do passionate battle against Bolshevism and venereal diseases, Christabel became a Second Adventist evangel, Adela moved from the Communist party to Australia and then into a pro-Japanese semifascism. Meanwhile Sylvia, perhaps the most remarkable of them all, championed the proletariat, gave birth to an illegitimate son in her forties, and wound up her frenetic lite as a sort of Empress with Hailie Selassie in Ethiopia.... No tub-thumping, but a healthy respect (and an innate human interest) for what was truly a remarkable sisterhood, and it should attract some of the readers for Vicky and Carrie Nation.