Lara Feigel CUSTODY with Sophie Ratcliffe

Custody

Lara Feigel’s Custody is a ground-breaking study of an often-overlooked but vital feature of the modern world. It is also a blisteringly original work of biographical imagination and large-scale historical argument. Custody is the story of seven women – Caroline Norton, George Sand, Elizabeth Packard, Frieda Lawrence, Edna O’Brien, Alice Walker, Britney Spears – who have fought for their children and been found wanting. And through these case studies it unpacks the embattled and often tortuous meanings of motherhood, parenthood and care in modern culture.

In this exciting event, Feigel joins acclaimed Oxford professor and writer Sophie Ratcliffe. In the synoptic spirit that joins their writing, Feigel and Ratcliffe will discuss not just custody past and present, but also how to write about women’s lives past and present, why custody is central to the history of the realist novel, and the current state of play both in feminism and the court system.

Lara Feigel

Lara Feigel is the author of four highly acclaimed works of cultural history and a novel. Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at King’s College London and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she reviews regularly for the Guardian and contributes to a range of BBC radio programmes. Her new book, Custody: The Secret History of Mothers comes out in January 2026.

Sophie Ratcliffe

Sophie Ratcliffe is the author of The Lost Properties of Love, a hybrid memoir about love, death and literature, and of On Sympathy. Professor of Literature and Creative Criticism at the University of Oxford, she is currently researching the history and importance of libraries. This research is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and has already involved an exhibition curated by Sophie at Compton Verney Art Gallery. She reviews widely, and has been a judge of the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Wellcome Book Prize.