The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography Of Eglantyne Jebb: Founder Of Save The Children Book

'I don t care for children...the little wretches', Eglantyne Jebb wrote bitterly as a young school teacher in 1900. She would never have children of her own, and had no great fondness for those of her family and friends. Yet this unlikely children's champion devoted her life to establishing the Save the Children movement and promoting children's human rights around the world. In her prize-winning biography The Woman Who Saved the Children, Clare Mulley tells the story of how and why a charismatic spinster revolutionized the way the world treats children. Eglantyne's short life was full of humour and tragedy, passion and pain. Her journeys took her from illicit romance in Cambridge to espionage in Serbia, and from private spiritualism in Shropshire to public arrest in Trafalgar Square. With the help of supporters including George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, and Pope Benedict XV, she managed to save millions of young lives and changed the mindset of a generation, before dying aged just fifty-two, her hair prematurely white but her passion undimmed. Meticulously researched, fresh, and immediate, Mulley's account of the adventures and tribulations of a humble revolutionary is a deeply moving testament to the power of humanitarian spirit.