Hard book to rate. Its probably a 3.5 but I'll give it a 4 because, despite its faults, deserves to be read more.

The book is easy to read and the prose is incredibly lucid. Garner clearly has great admiration for Dora and her life, but his own political sympathies come through much too often. Garder is unapologetic in his belief that Marsden's feminism was her greatest quality and the thing she should be remembered most for. Fine, but halfway through her intellectual life, she drops feminism for anarchist-individualism and egoism. As a consequence the book gets a bit jarring at around the half way point as Garner's personal politics continuously to get in the way. Instead of impartially outlining her views on anarchist-individualism and egoism, Garner is constantly throwing in his own dismissive opinion or holding her to daddy Marx's maxim "philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it" - can we please get Marx out of our anarchist and non-Marxist radical histories!!!! Garner gives a nice run through of the themes in her books but I never got the feeling like he was willing, or interested, in properly delving into her individualist-anarchism, which is a real shame. The criticism may seem harsh, the author has every right to include their opinion/reading of the history or individual they are studying, but I find that overbearing, and would rather make my own mind up rather than be told what to think by a biographer. To end on a positive note, as already noted, Garner clearly admires Marsden and he treats her lows and failures with respect and understanding, plus the conclusion is killer and could probably make for a nice article on its own.

Marsden was a prolific individual and the book should be read for that, but I'm waiting patiently for a book that gives her anarchism a fair hearing.