New book tells the story of a prominent 1800’s woman history chose to forget
Forty South Publishing
The Shape of Water RRP$29.95
Written by Anne Blythe-Cooper, The Shape of Water is a story which uses real facts and events to paint the story of what it was like to be a prominent woman in the 1800’s.
Married to Peter Degraves, the famous businessman, entrepreneur and founder of Cascade Brewery, Sophia Degraves lived, like most women from her time, in the shadow of her husband. Nothing is known of her beyond the children she bore and the death she died. This catalogue says nothing of the hardships and aspirations of an invisible colonial woman who built in flesh and blood what the men around her built with water and stone.
The Shape of Water (RRP: $29.95, Forty South Publishing) sets about righting this injustice. Using history and brute fact, Blythe-Cooper has created a work that is no longer purely historical, but also not purely fictional. It is a gripping and informative narrative from an era when men were respected and women forgotten.