All the Way to Fairyland

Evelyn Sharp (1869-1955) was the ninth of eleven children. Sharp's family sent her to a boarding schooling for two years, yet she successfully passed several university local examinations. She moved to London in 1894 against the wishes of her family where she wrote and published several novels including All the Way to Fairyland (1897) and The Other Side of the Sun (1900). In 1903 Sharp, with the help of her friend and lover, Henry Nevinson, began to find work writing articles for the Daily Chronicle, the Pall Mall Gazette and the Manchester Guardian. She highlighted the importance of Nevinson and the Men's League for Women's Suffrage. Sharp's journalism made her more aware of the problems of working- class women and she joined the Women's Industrial Council and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Unlike most members of the women's movement, Sharp was unwilling to end the campaign for the vote during the First World War. When she continued to refuse to pay income tax she was arrested and all of her property confiscated, including her typewriter.