In this comprehensive biography, Christine Mander depicts the life and times of Emily Murphy with a refreshing candor and vitality. A true Canadian heroine – pioneering feminism, writer (under the alias Janey Canuck), patriot, mother, anti-drug crusader, first woman magistrate of the British Empire and rebel – Emily Murphy defied conventional labels. To Hell with Women Magistrates, fulminated one court official on her appointment. Her greatest triumph came in 1929 when Lord Chancellor Sankey reversed the Canadian Supreme Court decision by ruling that women are persons under the constitution and therefore eligible for any political office. When Emily Murphy died in 1933, after a long battle with diabetes, her friend and fellow activist Nellie McClung remarked, Mrs. Murphy loved a fight and so far as I know, never turned her back on one.
