The Nine Lives Of Annie Besant: The Astonishing Story Of A Victorian Rebel

On Thursday, 5 April 1877, thirty-year-old Annie Besant stood trial in London for daring to sell a small book on birth control―an act that shocked Victorian society and made her a household name. This was only the beginning of a lifetime spent defying authority.

Besant began as a devout Christian wife, only to renounce her faith and embrace atheism. She became a fiery socialist voice in the strikes and protests of the 1880s, then turned to Theosophy in search of spiritual truths. But it was in India that she found her greatest cause. Moving beyond religion and reform, she became a leader in the Indian movement for self-rule, edited nationalist newspapers, campaigned for self-rule and was even interned by the British government for her influence. To many Indians she was a heroine; to the colonial State, a dangerous agitator.

Annie Besant’s life was extraordinary and full of contradictions: from politics to mysticism, from the London suburbs to the heart of India’s freedom struggle, from Christian piety to Theosophical priestesshood. The Nine Lives of Annie Besant tells the complete story of a woman who broke all the rules.