To celebrate their third graphic novel with SelfMadeHero, we decided to ask the Rickard Sisters all about this new work, how it fits in with their previous titles, and the social and historical inspirations that tie them all together.
Sophie Rickard (left) is a writer and child counsellor. Scarlett Rickard (right)is a graphic artist, illustrator, drummer and junk collector. Together, as the Rickard Sisters, they have collaborated on multiple graphic novels including the Eisner-nominated The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists,No Surrender, and This Slavery.
SelfMadeHero: To returning readers, This Slavery could seem to be the third part in a trilogy of literary adaptations by the Rickard Sisters, following on from The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (by Robert Tressell) and No Surrender (by Constance Maud). Was a “series” like that always the plan?Scarlett Rickard: It wasn’t the plan to make a trilogy of adaptations of Edwardian political fiction, it kind of happened by mistake. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and No Surrender feel very much like siblings (which is reflected in their cover designs), whereas This Slavery stands alone. The others were written primarily as recruiting tools and propaganda for their respective causes (socialism and suffragism), whereas This Slavery is a bit more sly! The story is exciting and heartfelt; you care for the characters and feel their struggles, and by the end you’ll probably accidentally be a socialist and a suffragist!
Sophie Rickard: By the time we finished The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and No Surrender, we thought we’d had enough of thinking about and drawing the 1910s, but we couldn’t resist This Slavery. Where The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists told the story of the working-poor in industrial capitalism, and No Surrender told the story of life without civil rights for women of all classes, This Slavery astounded us with a human story that holds both the patriarchy and capitalism to account. So although we had no idea we were going to make a trilogy, that’s what happened. They are three stories from a similar era, written with authenticity, and with a shared purpose: systemic change.
SMH: Being from the same corner of England in which this story is set, have you been longtime fans of Ethel Carnie Holdsworth’s work? How did you come to know of Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, Britain’s first female working class novelist?
Scarlett: Ethel Carnie Holdsworth and her work have been overlooked for many, many years. Being working class, female, northern, a revolutionary socialist, a feminist and a pacifist meant she was really up against the Establishment — physically, mentally and economically. Despite having written bestsellers in her day, outselling HG Wells at one point, she isn’t well known. We weren’t aware of her, despite growing up in East Lancashire and regularly spending time in Great Harwood, where she lived and worked in the cotton mills. The geography of the book was so personal to us, as it’s set in our homeland, that we felt confident in our innate knowledge of the place and the culture when it came to adapt and draw the book. It felt like coming home.
Sophie: The fact that we only stumbled across Ethel Carnie Holdsworth during research for the cotton-mill parts of drawing No Surrender is a testament to the work underway to revive Carnie Holdsworth’s work and reputation. Despite being born and educated in the area, we’d never been introduced. In the making of This Slavery we have benefited greatly from help and support from several members of the Pendle Radicals and Carnie Holdsworth’s relatives. We hope that this graphic adaptation will add to the visibility of Ethel Carnie Holdsworth’s spectacularly radical life and work.
SMH: All of the graphic novels you’ve published with us at SelfMadeHero have, thanks to the works they’re based on, tackled similar socially conscious themes and struggles during similar points in history. What inspired you to make that your focus?
Sophie: It’s Scarlett’s fault – because it all started with her saying The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists deserved to be more widely read but could do with more pictures and fewer words! The format – a full-length faithful graphic adaptation of an important book – seems to work so well for these topics, especially where young people are hungry for an accessible political education. We didn’t deliberately set out to make books about socialists in the years leading up to World War One, but it turns out that was a vibrant time for fictional accounts of lives spent trying to make change.
Scarlett: The common thread through the adaptations we’ve chosen to make is that of social justice, and of authenticity in the telling of the stories. We are drawn to books written by people who were there, who had boots on the ground, who lived and breathed the issues on the page. Often these books, written 100 years or more ago, are not the easiest to read for modern audiences, yet they have so much relevance to our lives, and so much to say about community, history and society — and how things could be different if we worked together, rather than against one another.
SMH: Naturally, adaptation means alteration. Did This Slavery require any adaptational changes that your previous titles did not, or vice versa?
Sophie: My hope is that readers who are familiar with the original works we have adapted never notice what’s been left out! Getting a long, wordy book into a graphic novel ‘shape’ requires a lot of cutting, and all sorts of gems and details get left behind. We did make a couple of tweaks to Ethel Carnie Holdsworth’s original text for plot reasons, and played the (now familiar) tricks of blending minor characters and switching the order of some events. We both particularly enjoyed the location setting this time, and have revelled in recreating Great Harwood, Blackburn and Pendle Hill – as well as the fabulous interiors of terraced houses, ‘modern’ mansions and of course the weaving mill. I’d like to think Ethel would be pleased with how This Slavery has turned out, and how her vibrant characters look and feel on the page.
Scarlett:This Slavery felt much more ‘story-shaped’ than The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and No Surrender. Ethel Carnie Holdsworth really knew how to craft a good romance, and she also knew how to get thoughts and ideas across in punchy ways. This book is different to the other two in one other respect – we actually added stuff to this one! There’s a section in the middle of the story where the original basically says, “I know you want to know what happened next, but I’m not going to tell you.” We decided not to be so cruel to our readers, so we made a sort of intermission between Book One and Book Two to show the passage of time, and to give readers a bit more of the story which Ethel only hinted at in the original.
SMH: Continuing with comparison, and returning to the similar themes shared across your graphic novels, how do you feel the relevance of their themes have changed since they were first published?
Scarlett: It’s ironically frustrating for us how relevant our books are! Things haven’t changed as much in 100 years as you’d hope. Both This Slavery and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists deal with the impact of capitalism on people’s lives and, in This Slavery’s case, its effects on women. In some ways, things have slipped so far backwards since the radical government changes of the 1940s (the welfare state, nationalised industry, the National Health Service, free education etc.), that the situation in the 1910s was better than now.
For example, in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell said that rent was a third of their income – it’s considerably more than that now for a large number of people. Even No Surrender, which deals with the movement for votes for women and wider gender equality, came out during the American mid-terms when Roe vs Wade was being overturned. It also has a lot to say about the politics of protest, at a time when people are being arrested for peaceful dissent against their governments. This Slavery features strikes and industrial action, collective bargaining and holding the ruthless capitalist bosses to account – hopefully we’ll begin to see some more of this, and it’ll become relevant in a new way!
Sophie: This Slavery is also radical in two directions at once – it points out the cruelty of systems within capitalism that keep working people precarious, and it also presents marriage within capitalism as one of the ways women are obliged to feed the monster. “We’re the slaves of the slaves, or the slaves of the bosses,” says Hester, “so long as we go on breeding children to become more masters and more slaves…” And her sister Rachel wants to know what the difference is between manual labour by the hour, and what we would now call ‘survival sex work’. These ideas were incredibly edgy when they appeared in This Slavery in 1925, and they still have bite today. As for Rachel’s speeches calling for a socialist revolution – I think they would equally impress Robert Tressell then, or Chris Smalls today.
SMH: So, with This Slavery hitting bookshop shelves, what do you hope your readers will take away from it? And what’s next in store for the Rickard Sisters?
Scarlett: We’re really excited for people to read This Slavery and to spend time in the world of Rachel and Hester Martin – and their dog Jip, of course! We hope it will be immersive, that it’ll make readers feel intimate with the locations and the characters and the time in which it’s all taking place. And that it fires people up to stand up to injustice, to love who they want to, to look after their communities, to enjoy nature and art, to spend time with their grandma and their dog, and read plenty of Marx!
Sophie: Yes, all of that – plus the value of local organising and solidarity, and inspire a little holiday to Burnley perhaps? Readers will recognise so much that is familiar to the way things work today, not least the strength of people in the face of injustice. I know we keep making ‘political’ books, but they are also funny and romantic and full of twists and turns. We hope our readers enjoy themselves. And what’s next? Well, it takes a long time to make a graphic novel, and we can’t promise anything yet, but we may be going to catapult forward several decades for our next story…
Thank you for reading! This Slavery is out today in the UK, and will launch in North America on October 7th!
- The SelfMadeHero Team
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