Fay Weldon Lecture

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Author, historian and champion of forgotten women’s writing Francesca Beauman to give third annual Fay Weldon lecture

Thursday, 6 November, 2025

On 10 November, Bath Spa University and the Being Human Festival will present the Fay Weldon Lecture 2025: The Afterlife of Women’s Writing, with guest lecturer Francesca Beauman. 

Francesca is an author, historian, and the managing director of Persephone Books, a Bath-based imprint dedicated to republishing neglected women novelists. She is the author of seven books, including a history of the pineapple and a history of personal ads, and is also the Vice-Chair of the Holburne Museum.  

Francesca’s lecture will ask why the work of so many women writers gets forgotten and what can be done to address this, using examples from the list of 153 books published by Persephone Books to shed light on some of the reasons these books fell out of print in the first place.  

Explaining further, Francesca said: 

“Taking Persephone’s recent global bestseller Crooked Cross by Sally Carson as a case study, including the literary detective work that was necessary to get it on shelves, I will suggest a few changes we can make, both practical and intellectual, to try to ensure that writing by women like Fay Weldon and others continues to be given the afterlife it deserves.” 

Talking about the importance of Fay Weldon’s legacy and work, Francesca said: 

“I am always delighted to have the opportunity to shine a light on women’s writing. This is the work that I do at Persephone Books all day, every day: smashing up the literary canon piece by piece. For women’s writing to endure we have to fight for it – just as Fay Weldon would have wanted us to.” 

The Fay Weldon Lecture was launched in 2023 in honour of the life and work of Fay Weldon CBE, Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University from 2012 to 2021. Each year the lecture continues her legacy of social engagement, gentle humour and writing for women.  The Fay Weldon Lecture is hosted by humanities for… , and chaired by BSU Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing Dr Celia Brayfield. 

Celia said: 

"Is literary immortality exclusive to men?  Why are male writers reverently added to the literary canon while women are forgotten? It is almost a century since Virginia Woolf imagined the struggles of Shakespeare's sister and Simone de Beauvoir pointed out that patriarchal values marginalised women's experience but has anything changed?  Francesca Beauman is the ideal speaker to explore this topic and we are absolutely delighted that she's delivering the Fay Weldon Lecture this year.” 

The Fay Weldon Lecture is open to the public and will take place on 10 November at 7pm in St Swithin’s Church, Bath. Tickets are free and can be booked online. 

This event is part of the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 6 - 15 November 2025. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For more information please visit their website.