Isabel Meredith

Isabel Meredith was the shared pen name of sisters Olivia Rossetti Agresti and Helen Rossetti Angeli. They came from the famous Rossetti family: daughters of writer and critic William Michael Rossetti and nieces of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

The sisters are best remembered for A Girl Among the Anarchists (1903), a novel drawn from their close knowledge of late Victorian radical politics. That insight came in part from their work on The Torch, an anarchist journal they helped edit as young women. The book mixes sharp social observation with humor and first-hand feeling, which is one reason it continues to attract readers interested in politics, history, and women writers.

Olivia later followed a wide and sometimes surprising path as an activist, author, editor, and interpreter, while Helen also wrote and pursued artistic work. Under the name Isabel Meredith, though, the sisters left behind a distinctive literary portrait of anarchist London and a memorable glimpse of outsider life at the turn of the twentieth century.