I know that many of you will be doing a double take at the title of this post. Yes, it is being posted in February and Women’s History Month in the UK and US is in March. (It is in October here in Canada- I celebrate it in both March and October!) However, with women’s history being actively erased in many places, I felt that it was more important than ever to get organised early. I am trying to focus on reading books that I already own this year, so I’ve chosen from my own bookshelves. (We at least have to try, right?) These are my to-read books for Women’s History Month 2025!
My If you are looking to get organised and choose your books, these are my to-read books for Women’s History Month 2025! 2025
Envisioning the Empress: The Lives and Images of Japanese Imperial Women, 1868-1952, Allison J. Miller
Envisioning the Empress illuminates dynamic and powerful empresses who impacted not only women in their own time but whose influence extended to later generations of royalty, creating a greater role for imperial women and elevating the status of women’s roles at a crucial juncture in Japanese history. The central focus of this book is visual monarchy, exploring how the empress’ biographies were primarily expressed in visual culture and how their images worked in support of Japan’s imperial policies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book begins with a brief overview of premodern and modern imperial women to orient the reader. In each chapter, different media, audiences, and distribution channels for constructing the narrative of feminine imperial power in Japan are addressed alongside biographical information. It is argued that the ultimate purpose of all of these images was to elevate the empress and promote her image as a conventional role model for modern women, but one with enough celebrity cache to maintain popularity. The images of the modern empresses, as distributed by the Imperial Household Agency, strike a balance between propaganda and popular media, noble philanthropist and upper-middle class role model, celebrity and mother of the nation. The modern empress image was crafted to be both exalted and approachable and worked to establish individual biographies while simultaneously establishing the position of the empress as timeless in the public eye. Envisioning the Empress introduces students of royal studies as well as modern Japanese history and art history to this fascinating element of the history of monarchy and women’s history more broadly.
King Charles II, Antonia Fraser
The story of King Charles II is one of enduring fascination. The golden childhood of the boy Prince in the Van Dyck pictures gave way to an adventurous youth in Civil War England and abroad, ending traumatically when his father was executed in 1649. Charles II, King at eighteen, succeeded to `nothing but the name’. After his valiant attempt to regain the throne was defeated by Cromwell at Worcester, the King made his epic escape – to years of exile, poverty and humiliation in Europe. The `miraculous’ Restoration ushered in a reign coloured by a series of equally dramatic events: the Great Plague, the Fire of London, two Dutch Wars, the bizarre Popish Plot, and finally the efforts of the Whigs to exclude his Catholic brother James from the succession, culminating in the King’s unexpected triumph over them at the Oxford Parliament of 1681.
A lover of women, passionate planner of parks and palaces and friend of the arts, this was the man who was to overcome the many problems of his reign and die not only in control of his country but in the affection of his countrymen. In this meticulously researched biography, Antonia Fraser offers important judgements and reassessments on central questions of the reign, such as Charles’s relationships, his attitude to Kingship, his patriotism and his religious beliefs. Above all she has succeeded in writing a totally compelling narrative, both moving and exciting, and showing all the skills and insights which have secured her place as one of the foremost biographers of our time.
Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Natalie Dykstra
But in time came friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; and collecting beautiful things with a keen eye and competitive pace–all these were balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent–whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal–came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer.
Born in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella Stewart married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner as she turned twenty. She was misunderstood by Boston’s insular society and suffered the death of her only child, a beloved boy, not yet two years old.
Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston’s Fens at the turn of the twentieth century. Its treasures encompassed not only masterwork paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, and fine furniture.
An extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, Chasing Beauty illuminates the fascinating ways the museum and its holdings can be seen as a kind of memoir, dazzling and haunting, created with objects instead of words and displayed per Isabella’s wishes in the exact placements she initially curated.
The vivid and masterful story of Isabella Stewart Gardner–creator of one of America’s most stunning museums–an American original whose own life was remade by art. Includes archival photos of Isabella’s world, museum, and the art she collected.
Forbidden Wife: The Life and Trials of Lady Augusta Murray, Julia Abel Smith
On the night of 4 April 1793, two lovers were preparing to compel a cleric to perform a secret ceremony. The wedding of the sixth son of King George III to the daughter of the Earl of Dunmore would not only be concealed – it would also be illegal.
Lady Augusta Murray had known Prince Augustus Frederick for only three months but they had already fallen deeply in love and were desperate to be married. However, the Royal Marriages Act forbade such a union without the King’s permission and going ahead with the ceremony would change Augusta’s life forever. From a beautiful socialite she became a social pariah; her children were declared illegitimate and her family was scorned.
Want more history recommendations? My 2025 To-Read History Books list features five books from female historians that I am looking forward to!
What books will you be reading for Women’s History Month?
Cheers,
The Historian
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