Emma Goldman called Voltairine de Cleyre "the most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced." Yet her writings and speeches on anarchism and feminism--as radical, passionate, and popular at the time as Goldman's--are virtually unknown today. This important book brings de Cleyre's eloquent and incisive work out of undeserved obscurity. Twenty-one essays are reprinted here, including her classic works: "Anarchism and the American Tradition," "The Dominant Idea," and "Sex Slavery." Three biographical essays are also included: two new ones by Sharon Presley and Crispin Sartwell,...

Voltairine de Cleyre was described by Emma Goldman "as the poet-rebel, the liberty-loving artist, the greatest woman-Anarchist of America." De Cleyre was born in 1866 in Leslie, Michigan. Her father who was a freethinker and communist at the time of her birth, named her in honor of Voltaire. She was a friend of Dyer D. Lum, Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, Louise Michel, and Alexander Berkman. She is best known for her passionate, provocative essays and lectures in support of women, the poor and the working class. Her poetry, somber though it is, was immensely popular in the radical, labor and...