Beginning her career as an activist in the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), Marsden eventually broke off from the suffragist organization in order to found a journal that would provide a space for more radical voices in the movement.

[2] Hannah worked as a seamstress to support her remaining children, which left the family living in poverty when Marsden was a child.

[3] In October 1909, Marsden was arrested with several other members of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) for dressing in full academic regalia and interrupting a speech by the chancellor of their alma mater, demanding that he speak out against the force-feeding of imprisoned suffragist alumni who were on hunger strike.

A few months later, she broke into the Southport Empire Theatre and hoisted herself into the cupola, where she waited 15 hours in order to heckle Winston Churchill, who was soon to become Home Secretary, while he was speaking at an election rally.

[6] Although she was dedicated to the early feminist movement, Marsden's strong theoretical principles and independent disposition often brought her into conflict with WSPU leadership, who found her unmanageable.

With continuous publication between the second and third, and only a short break between the first and second, critics have had difficulty deciding to what extent the journals should be considered part of the same intellectual project.

[8] In 1911, Marsden was becoming increasingly interested in egoism and individualist anarchism, an intellectual shift whose development is plainly visible in her editorial columns, where, as the issues progress, the scope of discussion widens to include a wide range of topics pertinent to anarchist theoreticians of the time.

Marsden held that monogamy had four cornerstones: men's hypocrisy; the spinster's dumb resignation; the Prostitute's unsightly degradation; and the married woman's monopoly.

[14] Marsden's magnum opus, produced later in her life, was not well received (not even by her former supporters) and she suffered a psychological breakdown in 1930, which was further deepened by the death of her mother in 1935.