This monograph offers the first full-length account of the political intervention of the nineteenth-century journalist, novelist and translator Francisca de Assis Martins Wood (1802-1900). Her unusual profile included several decades spent in England, which shaped her perception of Portugal. Why then was her intriguing life-story not examined earlier? And why did mid-nineteenth century female authorship remain neglected for so long in Portuguese cultural memory? After revisiting such matters with fresh eyes, the focus turns to the pioneer weekly periodical that Wood headed for two years, A Voz Feminina, later rebranded O Progresso.
Crucially, during an age when the transnational circulation of ideas became amplified through the press, the cosmopolitan Wood cultivated strategic connections with early suffragists across Europe. In a string of remarkable editorials, she tackled Church hegemony and pushed for women’s rights. Her daring anticlerical thinking
