But Jenny fights back – and we follow her journey from Lancashire’s cobbled streets to the thoroughfares of London, and watch as she comes up against entrenched interests who are more than willing to use State-sponsored violence against Jenny. Maud was an active suffragette, writing fiction in the same era about her authentic experience of living a marginalised life.

SelfMadeHero | No Surrender

But in this case Constance Maud’s No Surrender, first published in 1911, is admittedly less celebrated despite its vital importance in depicting the fight for votes for women in the UK. No Surrender, then, was written as a rallying cry for the women’s suffrage movement while their struggle was still very much ongoing. It was against this backdrop that novelist Constance Maud penned No Surrender – a heart­­felt work of fiction that tells the story of two women working to secure their democratic rights. No Surrender is a well-presented, substantial representation of a classic which deserves to be explored further. Jenny Clegg is a mill worker whose chance encounter with the well-to-do Mary O’Neil will see both women become close allies in the fight to give women the vote.The original novel is written in a visual style, and was less of a challenge to adapt than The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

No Surrender – Constance Maud’s 1911 Novel on Women’s Fight No Surrender – Constance Maud’s 1911 Novel on Women’s Fight

I have read and reviewed the original novel, which pioneering Suffragette Emily Wilding Davidson said “breathes the very spirit of our women’s movement”; it is brilliantly written and very much of its time. Jenny’s world is upturned as she becomes a powerful orator and activist while Mary foregoes her privileged existence to join her sisters on the frontlines of the protests. The colours are beautifully handled to suggest the difference between the depressing monochrome of the mill area and the poverty of the women and the luxurious settings in which the wealthy live.Anyone who enjoyed The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists will find No Surrender to be a perfect sister-volume, both in the authenticity of the adaptation and the historical sensitivity, humour and warmth of Scarlett’s art. Hailed by Emily Wilding-Davison as “a book which breathes the very spirit of our Women’s Movement”, the fast-paced story interweaves the lives of women from all classes working together to bring about change. A book that still has much to say a century on and one that in these dark times is a reminder that the fight for civil rights is a never-ending one. Our graphic novel of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists has gone down well with people who love the original, and with people who’d never heard of it before,” says Scarlett.