Exhibition Opening – ‘By a Lady: Revealing Women’s Stories’

Exhibition Opening – ‘By a Lady: Revealing Women’s Stories’

We warmly invite you to join us for the opening of By a Lady: Revealing Women’s Stories from Rare Books and Special Collections.

Women have always been at the forefront of storytelling, creation, invention and knowledge-sharing across cultures, eras and publications. This exhibition will feature over 150 works, including novels, illustrations, photographs, theses, posters, and much more that capture these stories.

This exhibition will be opened by Dr Caroline Williams, University Librarian.

We are delighted to have Aunty Barb Simms delivering the Welcome to Country. 

Speeches will begin at 5:30 pm. Please join us for light refreshments, as we dive into our collection stories!

Please note that this event will be photographed. 


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About the exhibition

The act of female authorship and creation has been one of resistance, resilience and survival. Through their works, women across the world have preserved culture, protected their knowledge, and fought back against movements that have sought to silence them. 

This exhibition’s title references the 18th–19th century practice of not crediting female authors by name, as this was considered improper or risky – instead crediting authorship as simply ‘by a lady’. A most famous occurrence of this was Jane Austen’s first novel Sense and Sensibility (1811), a first edition copy of which is held in the Library’s collection.

In contrast to the reductive flattening of credit by this statement, this exhibition reveals the complex stories of exceptional women, demonstrating the depth and strength of female-authored works in both public and private spheres.

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About Rare Books & Special Collections

The University of Sydney Library holds one of Australia’s largest rare and special collections in the Southern Hemisphere, with over 300,000 items. Collection highlights include Medieval manuscripts, Science Fiction books and comics, East Asian Collections, history of medicine, rare editions of music, and pre-2013 University of Sydney higher degree theses.

These collections are an invaluable resource for teaching and research. We welcome academics, students and the public to view and study these collections.

Find out more

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