Hello and welcome!
What’s it all about?
I’m Dr Ann Kennedy Smith, and the Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society is my blog and newsletter, which is now to be found via Substack. My short articles explore hidden corners of literature and in particular, bring women’s stories into the light, as I’ve been researching the first generation of women students, lecturers and academic wives at Cambridge for the past few years. I’m often to be found in library archives, poring over letters and diaries to find out more about the women who settled in Cambridge from the 1870s onwards. The title Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society refers to a society of twelve Cambridge women who met regularly for intellectual discussions over dinner from 1890 until 1914. It was described by the economist John Maynard Keynes as ‘a remarkable group’.
I’ve also been a published critic and freelance writer since 2016, with essays and literary reviews published in the TLS, History Today, Guardian, Slightly Foxed Magazine, Victorian Review and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography among others.
I moved my blog to the Substack platform in late 2023, because it’s an ad-free, showcases good writing and is supported by readers. My most popular posts here include my essay on the extraordinary Oxbridge Steamboat Ladies, who from 1904 to 1907 crossed the sea to Dublin to be awarded degrees their own universities had refused to give them; the influence of Gwen Raverat’s house by the river throughout her life; and an article about Sylvia Plath ‘at home’ in her first married flat in Cambridge in the bleak winter of 1956. I hope you’ll subscribe to my weekly newsletters, and join this friendly community.
‘Climb aboard Ann's Substack, she has a treasure horde of women, Literature and history to share!’ (Sarah Harkness, author of Literature of the People, forthcoming in 2024)
