Carmen Callil never lacked ambition. When a young job applicant walked into her London office in the 1970s and asked why Callil had started Virago Press, one of the first publishing companies devoted to the work of new and neglected female writers, she replied that her goal was simple: “To change the world, darling.”
Callil, who has died aged 84, may well have succeeded. Although Virago was far from the only women-led publishing house to emerge out of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 70s, the company helped redefine what a commercial publishing house could look like, serving as a beacon for a generation of readers looking for books that were written by and for women, in contrast to the male-dominated offerings of traditional publishers.
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