"Emmeline Pankhurst (b. 1858) emphasized the value of her childhood reading in forming her guiding principles. Uncle Tom's Cabin fused with talk of bazaars, relief funds, and subscriptions in her Manchester home to awaken first an admiration for fighting spirit and heroic sacrifice, and then an appreciation of a gentler, restorative spirit ... other favourite childhood books which remained a lifelong source of inspiration ... [were]: Pilgrim's Progress and The Holy War, the Odyssey, and Carlyle's French Revolution. Her interest in politics she traced to reading the paper aloud to her father."