A groundbreaking biography of the world's first female sports
superstar, the pioneering and uncompromising Lottie Dod
Eighty-five years before Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs fought the
'battle of the sexes, ' a Victorian teenager showed what women could do
. . . [Abramsky] celebrates her as a brave and talented and determined
original. In sports, the battle of the sexes is far from over, but Dod
won more than a few break points simply by living her own life to the
fullest.
--The Atlantic
Abramsky's reclamation of [Dod's] story is a welcome addition that
reminds us that women have long struggled for an equitable place in
sports and that women athletes do have predecessors to look toward for
encouragement in their contemporary fights for pay equity, TV coverage
and respect.
--Ms. Magazine
Before Serena Williams and Megan Rapinoe, there was Lottie
Dod...Abramsky presents a well-researched account of a woman whose rare
losses were almost more newsworthy than her consistent victories.
--Christian Science Monitor
An adroitly written biography...Abramsky offers a fascinating portrait
of the life of this forgotten sports heroine in fluid prose. Little
Wonder is a worthy addition to the sports literature.
--New York Journal of Books
Abramsky...masterfully captures the life of this little-known
sportswoman, a versatile female athlete comparable to Babe Didrikson
Zaharias. In an eloquently written narrative, spiced with vivid
descriptions of the Victorian era and the early twentieth century, he
shines a light on Dod...This fine biography makes a significant
contribution to sports history and women's studies and should go a long
way to bringing Dod's inspirational story to a new audience.
--Booklist, Starred review
Abramsky combines descriptive writing with research that pulls back the
curtain to reveal an athlete whose feats remain stunning 60 years after
her death and more than a century after her glory days.
--New Books in History (podcast)
Lottie Dod was a truly extraordinary sports figure who blazed trails of
glory in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dod won
Wimbledon five times, and did so for the first time in 1887, at the
ludicrously young age of fifteen. After she grew bored with competitive
tennis, she moved on to and excelled in myriad other sports: she became
a leading ice skater and tobogganist, a mountaineer, an endurance
bicyclist, a hockey player, a British ladies' golf champion, and an
Olympic silver medalist in archery.
In her time, Dod had a huge following, but her years of distinction
occurred just before the rise of broadcast media. By the outset of World
War I, she was largely a forgotten figure; she died alone and without
fanfare in 1960.
Little Wonder brings this remarkable woman's story to life,
contextualizing it against a backdrop of rapid social change and
tectonic shifts in the status of women in society. Dod was born into a
world in which even upper-class women such as herself could not vote,
were restricted in owning property, and were assumed to be fragile and
delicate.
Women of Lottie Dod's class were expected not to work and to definitely
get married. Dod never married and never had children, instead putting
heart and soul into training to be the best athlete she could possibly
be. Paving the way for the likes of Billie Jean King, Serena Williams,
and other top female athletes of today, Dod accepted no limits, no glass
ceilings, and always refused to compromise.
