Who was the first woman to swim the English Channel?
English Channel latter part of the 19th century when Captain Matthew Webb made the first observed and unassisted swim across the Strait of Dover, swimming from England to France on 24–25 August 1875 in 21 hours 45 minutes. In 1927, at a time when fewer than ten swimmers (including the first woman, Gertrude Ederle in 1926) had managed to emulate the feat and many dubious claims were being made, the Channel Swimming Association (CSA) was founded to authenticate and ratify swimmers' claims to have swum the Channel and to verify crossing times. The CSA was dissolved in 1999 and was succeeded by
The Woman Who Was Poor The Woman Who Was Poor The Woman Who Was Poor () is an 1897 novel by the French writer Léon Bloy. It follows a woman, Clotilde, who becomes involved with the Paris art and literary scene in the 1880s. It was Bloy's second novel. An English translation by I. J. Collins was published in 1939. Ernest Boyd of the "Saturday Review" wrote in 1939 about the English-language edition: The translator duly apologizes for his squeamishness, although none of our current exponents of the "Anglo-Saxon" monosyllables would have been deterred by Bloy, even if disgusted by his deliberate and unnecessary blasphemies.