Edith Simcox

Edith Jemima Simcox (21 August 1844 –15 September 1901) was a British writer, trade union activist, and early feminist. She began her writing career as a reviewer, publishing criticism under the pseudonym "H. Lawrenny," including an important review of the Memoir of Jane Austen (1870). In 1875 she and Emma Paterson became the first women to attend the Trades Union Congress as delegates. She lived at 60 Dean Street, London. From 1879-1882 she was a member of the London School Board representing Westminster.

A lesbian, she had an admiring and passionate, yet physically unrequited relationship with the older George Eliot. George Augustus Simcox and William Henry Simcox were her brothers.

• Natural Law: An Essay in Ethics (1877)
• George Eliot. Her life and works (1881) article in the Nineteenth Century
• Episodes in the Lives of Men, Women and Lovers (1882) fiction
• The Capacity of Women (1887) article in the Nineteenth Century
• Primitive Civilizations: or Outlines of the History of Ownership in Archaic Communities (1894)
• A Monument to the Memory of George Eliot: Edith J. Simcox's Autobiography of a Shirtmaker (1998) autobiography, edited by Constance M. Fulmer and Margaret E. Barfield