Warning FROM THE PUBLISHER
Voted Britain's best-loved poem by viewers of BBC TV's Bookworm, this perennial favorite with its declaration of defiance against convention appeals to all those with a secret desire to throw off the strictures of propriety and set out deliberately to shock and be outrageous. It sums up this wish perfectly with its pronouncement: 'When I am an old woman I shall wear purple/With a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me/I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired/And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells." Reprinted here as a gift book with line drawings by Pythia Ashton-Jewell, this edition of the classic is ideal both for those who know and love the poem and for those who have yet to relish its gleeful anticipation.
Author Biography: Jenny Joseph won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for her narrative in prose and verse, Persephone.
FROM THE CRITICS
Newton Kansan
Would make a wonderful gift
Souvenir
"Warning--When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple quite simply changed the face of aging for women in the United States....Jenny Joseph's "old lady in purple" became a powerful symbol for taking charge of one's life and refusing to accommodate other's expectations. Claimed by women who had cut their teeth on social movements of the 60s and 70s, purple became a statement of pride; wrinkles and gray hair became badges of honor. Now this new edition to the celebration of old age and pushing boundaries brings us the added delight of Pythia Ashton-Jewell's pen and ink drawings."
--Sandra Martz, founding editor and former publisher of Paper Mache Press and consummate "purple-wearer"
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