No Surrender: by Scarlett and Sophie Rickard

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The sisters scored a publishing sensation in 2020, when their graphic novel adaptation of Robert Tressell’s seminal socialist novel, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, illustrated the thirst for this type of story.

No Surrender review: graphic novel reworks Suffragette classic

As they saw the success of their work translating Tressell into another literary form, Maud’s book came on their radar. Jenny Clegg is a Lancashire mill-hand with dreams of equality and freedom. Along with friends from every walk of life, she brings the fight to the Prime Minister’s door – and suffers for her cause. Written by a Suffragette from the heat of the battle, this novel is a vivid social record of a tumultuous era, told through the lives of a broad cast of powerful characters. No Surrender is like a sister volume to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists,” says Scarlett. “Maud was an active suffragette, writing fiction in the same era about her authentic experience of living a marginalised life. While The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists examined the arguments for and against socialism, No Surrender explores the battle for equality, how women were regarded, and the ethics of civil disobedience.” The original novel is written in a visual style, and was less of a challenge to adapt than The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. What makes No Surrender work is the way the relevance to our current lives shines through the story.Constance Maud’s suffragette novel No Surrender, first published in 1911, isn’t what I would call an enticing read, however authentic a record it may be of its author’s times (Maud, the daughter of a Surrey rector, joined the Women’s Freedom League in 1908, and thereafter participated enthusiastically in the same kind of peaceful civil disobedience as her characters). While it’s true that Emily Wilding Davison, the woman who would later be trampled beneath the King’s horse at Epsom, adored it, feeling that it breathed the very “spirit of our women’s movement”, most modern readers tend to find it plodding and cliched, its story never quite flaring to life. This is a fascinating story and equally an important piece of social history – deserving a modern audience. But written in a language that reads like a period piece, No Surrender was ready to be updated. No Surrender is a good book with engaging characters, exciting events and romance,” says Sophie. “What you don’t see in the graphic novel are the bits we left out – cringey dialogue, references modern readers wouldn’t understand and extraneous detail. We hope people familiar with the original will feel we’ve done it justice.” Books like Maud’s No Surrender have survived by being discovered by a narrow set of readers – historians and activists. By moving the action from Maud’s prose to their eye catching illustrations, the sisters hope her message reaches as many as possible.

No Surrender by Scarlett and Sophie Rickard review – the long

Our graphic novel of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists has gone down well with people who love the original, and with people who’d never heard of it before,” says Scarlett. “The graphic storytelling medium has made Tressell’s political ideas accessible to a new generation. It’s a great way to revive older books that deserve more attention.” We have begun to think of the 1910s as ‘our era’ and relish the task of world-building in an authentic way,” says Scarlett. “Design, style and subtle social cues about relative prosperity are all part of the book’s richness. We have to think about things like lighting – electricity, gas, or candles? – and transport – motor car, horse or walking? – in different ways without getting carried away with historical detail.” Anyone who enjoyed The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists will find No Surrender to be a perfect sister-volume, both in the authenticity of the adaptation and the historical sensitivity, humour and warmth of Scarlett’s art.Illustrating London in 1910 required research. No Surrender has a deeply immersive world for the words to play out across. Graphic novel publishers Self Made Hero, based in King’s Cross, have earned a reputation for finding new ways to use the genre to cast a light on modern storytelling. They range from the noir and thriller to social realism and political tales. Tressell was a decorator who wrote about economics from his working-class point of view, and died in poverty in 1911 before it was published,” says Scarlett. “It was a difficult book in prose form, and we wanted to make it more accessible because it contains important ideas.”