Name: The Nine Lives of Annie Besant – The Astonishing Story of a Victorian Rebel
Author: Clare Paterson
No. of Pages: 256
Genre: Non-Fiction/Biography
Publisher: Penguin Random House India
Price: Rs. 499/-
Published in: 2025

How did I get it? From the publisher.

THE BLURB SAYS:

On Thursday, 5 April 1877, thirty-year-old Annie Besant stood trial in London for daring to sell a small book on birth control–an act that shocked Victorian society and made her a household name. This was only the beginning of a lifetime spent defying authority.

Besant began as a devout Christian wife, only to renounce her faith and embrace atheism. She became a fiery socialist voice in the strikes and protests of the 1880s, then turned to Theosophy in search of spiritual truths. But it was in India that she found her greatest cause. Moving beyond religion and reform, she became a leader in the Indian movement of self-rule, edited nationalist newspapers and was even interned by the British government for her influence. To many Indians, she was a heroine; to the colonial State, a dangerous agitator.

Annie Besant’s life was extraordinary and full of contradictions: from politics to mysticism, from the London suburbs to the heart of India’s freedom struggle, from Christian piety to Theosophical priestess hood. The Nine Lives of Annie Besant tells the complete story of a woman who broke all the rules.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Clare Paterson is an award-winning television executive with extensive experience of commissioning and making documentaries, some of which have been honored with BAFTAs and International Emmys. Recent credits include The Day Mountbatten Died (BBC Two); A Very British History (BBC Four); The Bank that Almost Broke Britain, (BBC Two); and the multi-award-winning Exodus – Our Journey to Europe (BBC Two), a terrifying, intimate and epic portrayal of the migration crisis. Her first book, Mr. Horniman’s Walrus, was published in September 2022.

MY THOUGHTS: 

The Writing:

The book is easy to follow and the pace is brisk. It has been divided into nine parts, focussing on the nine roles that Annie Besant broadly played during her life, overlapping in timeline. They are as follows:

1. Christian Wife
2. Pariah
3. Birth Controller
4. Socialist Activist
5. Trade Unionist
6. Occult Initiate
7. High Priestess
8. Spiritual Mother
9. Politician

What I liked and what I didn’t:

Annie Besant was anything and everything but an ordinary Victorian woman. I remember her from my history school textbooks as a reformist who worked in India. So when I saw that her biography was up for reviewing, I decided to pick it up.

Being a woman in the Victorian era, let alone a feminist and a rebel, was not a piece of cake. It must have taken a lot of courage, stubbornness and sheer grit to lead her life as Annie Besant did. She had a fire in her that kept her going despite the hardships and harshness she faced. She made bold choices, stood up for herself as well for the unrepresented, and for her transforming beliefs, undaunted by the possible consequences. Her story is a reminder how a person can transform with time, from one phase to another, shaped by experiences, situations and choices, and become the ultimate version of oneself.

But the I couldn’t connect emotionally to the biography. Many a times, it felt more like a history book, with facts and figures. It was more like watching her life from the sidelines, how she came across in the society, and the speculations that surrounded her personal life. I would have liked to know more about her as a person, if it were possible, in addition to the rebel.

Final thoughts:

The author has covered a lot of ground in such a short book and that, certainly, is commendable. However, it felt like too much information in at times. A great book to go to if you want to know about the extraordinary life of Annie Besant.

I give “The Nine Lives of Annie Besant”

I thank the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.