Victorian Secrets

Independent press dedicated to publishing books from and about the nineteenth century

  • Home
  • About
  • Catalogue
    • Victorian Secrets
    • Twentieth Century Vox
  • News
  • Contact

Life in the Victorian Asylum by Mark Stevens

February 14, 2015 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Life in the Victorian Asylum by Mark StevensThe mention of Victorian asylums often evokes images of despairing souls, incarcerated by sadistic wardens. While we might sigh with relief at our good fortune at living in more enlightened times, archivist Mark Stevens’s insightful new book offers a completely different perspective. Cleverly written in the style of a handbook for new arrivals, Stevens deftly adopts a Victorian tone, but with twenty-first-century sensibilities.

The reader is invited to join the guide on a virtual tour of a typical nineteenth-century asylum – a composite based mostly on the model of Moulsford Asylum in Berkshire. We learn about the architecture, the daily routine, and treatments offered through what is described as “the very latest in lunatic healthcare”. The guide calmly explains the possible reasons for admission, which might include “wandering aimlessly”, exhibiting “unusual facial expressions”, or “a belief that you can predict high tides”. Everything is carefully designed to provide a sanctuary from the outside world, with thoughtfully designed surroundings and professional staff. Well, not all the staff behave professionally. The guide reluctantly relates the story of the chaplain who eloped to Uxbridge with the local schoolmistress, and the porter who couldn’t resist dropping nuts down the dresses of younger colleagues.

It’s clear that the patient is treated as someone who ought to be helped, rather than a burden on the state. As our guide explains, three times the weekly allowance for a pauper in the workhouse is spent on the asylum inmate. This is in recognition that they are not responsible for their condition: they are the deserving poor. The contrast is keenly apparent in the architecture. With generously proportioned windows, elaborate brickwork, and plentiful fireplaces, the asylum presents a welcoming edifice, unlike the minatory appearance of the workhouse. And there’s no pointless labour. Instead, the patients are provided with plenty of reading material and stodgy food – a regime thought to promote well-being and an amenable temperament (it would certainly work for me).

The second half of the book includes a real-life history of Moulsford Asylum, accompanied by an illuminating discussion of Broadmoor – perhaps the most famous institution of its type. Stevens is also the author of Broadmoor Revealed, which explores the lives of its more notorious inmates. The book concludes with some compelling thoughts on the legacy of the Victorian asylum. Stevens acknowledges the views of those who believe the asylum system was simply another instrument of poor law oppression, but urges us to reconsider these institutions as the embodiment of an altruistic belief in the possibility of a better life for those suffering from mental health problems. As he argues, the current provision in the UK is woefully adequate in comparison. While none of us would want to be swaddled in cold flannels or medicated with toxic substances, such treatment was based on imperfect understanding, rather than on deliberate sadism. Victorianists will rejoice in the absorbing detail, acuity, and compassion of this book.

Life in the Victorian Asylum: The World of Nineteenth-Century Mental Health Care by Mark Stevens is published by Pen & Sword Books and currently available in hardback and ebook editions. The publisher kindly sent me a review copy.

Filed Under: books, reviews

Sowing the Wind by Eliza Lynn Linton

February 8, 2015 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Sowing the Wind by Eliza Lynn LintonEliza Lynn Linton is an unlikely heroine for me, given she is best known for her anti-feminist articles ‘The Girl of the Period’ for the Saturday Review. While her journalism alerted readers to the dangers of the New Woman in all her guises, Linton’s novels – quite literally – tell a different story.

First published in 1867, Sowing the Wind features an emancipated woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to Linton herself. Like her creator, Jane Osborn works as a journalist on a daily newspaper, managing to thrive in a masculine environment and to earn the respect of her male colleagues. Linton was actually the first woman journalist in England to earn a salary, and was described by Charles Dickens as “good for anything, and thoroughly reliable”.1 Jane works to support her mother, an endearing but unworldly woman, and her recently discovered cousin, Isola.

The bewitchingly beautiful Isola leads a stultifying existence as the wife of St. John Aylott, a tyrannical popinjay more interested in his appearance than in her happiness. He is a grotesque caricature of the Victorian husband, denying Isola her subjectivity and insisting they must share one mind – i.e. his. As an independent and capable woman, Jane is horrified by her cousin’s circumscribed life:

Sacrifice yourself for a good cause if you like – for the progress of principles, for truth, freedom, humanity – but not to foolish whims and fancies like your husband’s.2

Jane memorably dismisses St. John as an “idiotic bit of millinery”, unable to see the point of a man who is neither manly nor strong. She encourages Isola’s steady transformation from passive ornament to woman of convictions, offering both moral and financial support. Once Isola displays even a modicum of resistance to her husband’s demands, he quickly descends into paranoia, then madness. His tempers and pettifogging are contrasted with Isola’s poise and Jane’s unflagging good sense. As a few scholars have identified, there are marked similarities between Sowing the Wind and Anthony Trollope’s He Knew He Was Right, published two years later.

By pathologising St. John’s behaviour, Linton emphasises that his behaviour is exceptional, rather than representative of Victorian husbands. Yet Isola’s situation is emblematic of that faced by many women before the legal reforms of the late nineteenth century. With no right to control her own money, she is entirely dependent upon the whims of a domestic god. Having recently separated from her husband, Linton was painfully aware that marriage had very different implications for men and women. She might have been terrified by the potential repercussions of a powerful women’s rights movement, but Linton was far too independent-minded to accept the role of conventional wife. Surely, it is the author who speaks through Jane when she declaims:

Ah, you may talk as you like, Isola!—babies, and love, and the graces and prettinesses are all very fine, I dare say, but give me the real solid pleasure of work — a man’s work — work that influences the world—work that is power! To sit behind the scenes and pull the strings[.]3

Jane Osborn is an intriguing avatar. She is described as a “rude, unlovely boy-woman”, and her colleagues call her “good fellow”, Jack, or Johnnie O. Her ‘otherness’ is stressed throughout the narrative – particularly her unkempt appearance and refusal to acknowledge male superiority – but she is undeniably the hero(ine) of the story. Almost twenty years later, Linton would perform an act of literary transvestism by telling her life story as a man in The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland (1885). Perhaps influenced by the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, she felt that she was the soul of one sex in the body of the other. With lesbianism yet to be or understood, she could express her sexuality only through male-identification.

By the end of the novel, Jane is still an outsider, while Isola’s appropriately feminine behaviour is rewarded. Although Linton isn’t making an especially radical statement about marriage itself, the novel is, nevertheless, highly provocative in presenting a clear alternative for women. Jane might think wistfully of a life partner, but, like Linton, she’d rather be single than married to a man like St. John Aylott. Her attraction to Isola, revealed in tantalising hints, cannot be recognised – instead, her passion must be channelled into work.

Quite apart from Linton’s exploration of sexuality and gender, Sowing the Wind is also a joyous example of the sensation novel, with themes of inheritance, concealed identity, and miscegenation. There’s even a parrot. Linton might be infuriating, but she’s never dull.

Sowing the Wind by Eliza Lynn Linton, edited by Deborah T. Meem and Kate Holterhoff, is published by Victorian Secrets and available in paperback and Kindle editions.

The cover photo for this edition was very kindly provided by Paul Frecker, who runs The Library of Nineteenth-Century Photography. The image actually shows a carte de visite of a man suffering from toothache (a curious choice), but I thought it suggested St. John Aylott’s mental anguish.

  1. Fix Anderson, Nancy, Women Against Women in Victorian England: Life of Eliza Lynn Linton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p.66 [↩]
  2. Linton, Eliza Lynn, Sowing the Wind, ed. by Deborah T Meem and Kate Holterhoff (Brighton: Victorian Secrets, 2015) [↩]
  3. Sowing the Wind, p. 248 [↩]

Filed Under: books, reviews

George Eliot: The Last Victorian by Kathryn Hughes

June 5, 2014 By Catherine Pope

Cover of George Eliot: The Last Victorian by Kathryn HughesAlthough George Eliot declared biography to be “a disease of English literature,” it hasn’t yet been eradicated, and there have been almost 20 attempts to tell the story of her life and career. The number of Victorian women writers who enjoyed both critical and commercial success can be counted on the fingers of one hand, so Eliot is certainly worthy of all this biographical attention. Of course, George Eliot is just as famous for her unconventional private life as for her novels. Well, I say “private life,” but the details of her adulterous relationship with G H Lewes and subsequent short-lived marriage to John Cross have been the subject of much lurid speculation. There isn’t much new information in Hughes’ book, but her account is lively, insightful, and unashamedly feminist in approach.

Eliot was, and remains, a tricky poster girl for the women’s rights movement. She did a thorough job of flouting convention with a public declaration of agnosticism and bagging another woman’s husband, but had no intention of becoming a figurehead. Eliot insisted on styling herself “Mrs Lewes,” responding snottily to anyone who referred to her as “Miss Evans”. Sceptical of women’s intellectual fitness to vote, she also requested that her royalties were paid directly to Lewes. Her novels might tackle some of the greatest questions of the Victorian era, but for Eliot social change should come gradually – had she lived in the 21st century, she might have written Felix Holt the Liberal Democrat.

While this lack of sorority is disappointing, perhaps just being “George Eliot” was enough to advance the cause: the quondam Mary Ann Evans showed that it was possible for a Victorian woman to maintain a happy (if irregular) marriage and a successful literary career. There is, too, a sense that Eliot craved normality. Her exceptional intellect had already marked her out as different in an age when women were expected to be Stepfordian, so she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. The common-law marriage with Lewes that outraged Eliot’s family was merely an expedient, allowing her to enjoy a relationship with perhaps the only man who would accept her for what she was. The seriousness with which Eliot took her role as stepmother to his sons indicates that she wanted to subscribe to prevailing notions of Victorian womanhood, rather than to completely reshape them. Needless to say, the implications of this unorthodox marriage were different for husband and wife. While Lewes was lionised, enjoying the stimulation and glamour of the literary world, Eliot was virtually a recluse. Hypocrites such as the political reformer Joseph Parkes thought her behaviour scandalous, despite himself maintaining a wife and a mistress.

The symbiotic Lewes-Eliot partnership intrigues Hughes. Eliot needed Lewes’ encouragement and unflagging praise, while he was dependent upon her four-figure royalty cheques to support his estranged family. Nurturing the talent of George Eliot allowed Lewes to pursue his scientific interests, schmooze at swanky parties, and to maintain a lifestyle well beyond his means as a modestly successful author. Although he was the dominant partner in many respects, few men would have delighted as he did in hearing praise heaped on their wives’ abilities rather than on their own. He bathed in her reflected glory, but in doing so elevated the status of the woman author. As Hughes writes, “he honoured her genius without resenting it”. Rejected by her family, Eliot yearned for love and acceptance, along with the intellectual stimulation necessary to develop her uniquely philosophical style – she found it all in this fussy and flashy little man.

Unfortunately, Eliot’s marriage to John Cross, a family friend more than 20 years her junior, was less successful. Their honeymoon in Venice  is perhaps the most famous in history, with the groom throwing himself in the Grand Canal and having to be fished out by startled gondoliers. We’ll never know what prompted his bid for freedom, but perhaps Cross believed in the misconception of the Victorian woman as asexual, and was thoroughly alarmed when his wife took the initiative. This marriage lasted only seven months, cut short by Eliot’s death in December 1880 at the age of 61. She was buried alongside G H Lewes, the man who knew her best, and without whom she could never have been “George Eliot”.

Eliot emerges from this biography an awkward, fragile, and solipsistic creature struggling with an unwieldy intellect, yet capable of brilliance. Hughes allows her subject to be both remarkable and human, remaining firm but fair, for instance celebrating the genius of Middlemarch but condemning the unrelenting stodginess of Romola. The nuanced and reflective approach leaves the reader with a strong sense of both George Eliot and Mary Ann Evans, with all their idiosyncrasies, contradictions, and limitations sympathetically interrogated.

George Eliot: The Last Victorian by Kathryn Hughes is available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: biography, books, reviews

The Victorian Guide to Sex by Fern Riddell

May 25, 2014 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Victorian Guide to Sex by Fern RiddellAlthough Queen Victoria was supposedly prudish, she popped out nine tiny Saxe-Coburgs and the population more than doubled during her reign. We might think of the Victorians as sexually repressed, but they were clearly at it like stoats. In The Victorian Guide to Sex, Fern Riddell synthesises a wealth of material from marriage guides, newspapers, and the archives to bring us a more sophisticated and composite view of our ancestors.

Unusually, the material is presented through fictional characters, members of The Society of Social Morality, who seek to further human social understanding. Dr Dimmock takes us on a tour of the human body, acknowledging the ghastliness of puberty and issuing a stern warning on the dangers of celibacy. Eschewing the pleasures of the flesh led to blindness, deafness, and “many various foul diseases of the skin”. No wonder monks are always mad in Victorian novels. Dimmock’s message is clear: “Choose Love, Choose Life”. It’s that simple. Of course, one shouldn’t choose a partner indiscriminately. Large-footed men and women are awkward yet reliable, but small-footed persons are “dangerously prone to gaiety and evolutions across the ballroom”.

The modern world, says Mrs Dollymop, is “a befuddling place to navigate”. Fortunately, she is brimming with advice on hair, make-up, and choosing a husband. She advises playing a long game, as “husbands cannot be returned once you have got them home and discovered their flaws” (although if you take counsel instead from Lady Audley, they can be pushed down a well). While Mrs Dollymop apparently suggests a rather limited sphere for women, she takes time out to celebrate the achievements of nineteenth-century rebels such as Annie Besant, Ada Lovelace, and Cora Pearl.

Preserving masculinity is the concern of the Rev. J J James, who urges young men to follow the example of strongman Eugen Sandow, deemed to embody physical perfection. James helpfully includes a guide for flirting: winking the right eye announces “I love you,” while placing the right little finger to the right eye means “Aren’t you ashamed?” It’s a minefield. One should be particularly wary of nervous tics in the presence of women with heavy legs and flat shoes – signifiers of a coarse nature: “Avoid this as you would the pox,” he advises.

Lady Petronella Von Hathsburg brings a certain worldliness to her chapter, eager to ensure marital felicity for both husband and wife. The mysteries of the marriage bed are unveiled and the importance of the female orgasm is stressed. For the woman, “this will arrive as a tinkling pleasure … which she must advertise to her husband immediately”. To ensure that conception occurs, the woman must avoid a “downward situation” by not talking, sneezing, or coughing.

Among Mr Mandrake’s Compendium of Practical Aids is a cure for hysterical behaviour: lay the victim on a waterproof sheet and douse them with a jug of cold water. I might try this on the next UKIP candidate who knocks on the door. While most of the other remedies are quaintly obsolete, a “decent glass of hot gin-and-water at bedtime” certainly sounds like a solution to most ailments. Some of Mr Mandrake’s practical aids are of a more, errrm, manual nature. The Vee Dee Vibrator, which looks for all the world like a giant rotary whisk, was designed to cure muscular pain and debilitating nervous diseases. Well, it would surely take your mind off them. Princess Alexandra was, apparently, an enthusiastic user of Vigor’s Horse-Action Saddle, an odd contraption that was supposed to stimulate the liver (among other things). Filthy cow.

Thanks to his correspondence with ‘Walter’, author of My Secret Life, Lord Arthur Cleveland is able to advise us on “extreme tastes,” such as homosexuality, prostitution, and flagellation. Having attended boarding school, Lord Arthur is under no illusions regarding the sexual nature of men, evidenced in the popular playground game of ‘Cocks-all-around’, where the little savages would compare their lower portions.

While much of this material is authentic, Riddell readily admits (albeit reluctantly) that ‘The Femme de Voyage or Artificial Fanny’ might have been a spoof, with no existence beyond the privately circulated magazine in which it appeared. This inflatable device was perfect for travellers, but only those who could afford the equivalent of £12,000. That would pay for an awful lot of prostitutes, but then I suppose they’re more difficult to conceal in your hat.
The Victorian Guide to Sex is part sourcebook, part pastiche, so is difficult to categorise as a book. Although the sources are listed at the back, the lack of footnotes means it’s unsuitable for academic study. What it does provide, however, is an enjoyable read and an informative survey of Victorian sexual tastes and preoccupations. Riddell knows her stuff and succeeds in presenting a rigorously balanced account of this complex subject. From her absorbing book, the Victorian era emerges as no less surprising or contradictory than our own.

The Victorian Guide to Sex: Desire and Deviance in the 19th Century by Fern Riddell is available in paperback.

Filed Under: books, reviews

Did She Kill Him? A Victorian Tale of Deception, Adultery and Arsenic by Kate Colquhoun

March 23, 2014 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Did She Kill Him by Kate ColquhounAnyone who saw the recent BBC documentary Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home knows that arsenic was everywhere in the late nineteenth century. It was used as a beauty product, as a medicine, and also to achieve a vibrant green colour in wallpaper. This ubiquity made it devilishly difficult to prove cases of deliberate poisoning and many murderers probably got away scot-free. When a case did make it to court, the nation was transfixed. Kate Colquhoun’s engrossing book recounts the 1889 trial of Florence Maybrick, a young American woman accused of poisoning her respectable English husband, James. This cause célèbre dominated the press and divided opinion and Did She Kill Him? evokes the febrile atmosphere of the courtroom.

The Maybricks met on ship in 1880, their romance blooming in the middle of the Atlantic. James was a 41-year-old cotton broker and Florence a 17-year-old ingénue, accompanied by her mother. Marrying the following year, they lived in Virginia before finally settling down in their suburban villa in Liverpool. Ostensibly a respectable middle-class marriage, outward appearances masked James’ infidelity and violence. While he spent much of his time in London with his long-term mistress, Florence amused herself by running up large debts and reading questionable novels. As the trial was to reveal, this was a deeply unhappy marriage.

James Maybrick wasn’t just a love rat, he was also a self-medicating hypochondriac who believed small quantities of arsenic to have an invigorating effect. When in 1889 he became ill, James’s response was to dose himself up with even more toxic potions; in the week leading up to his death, he was given no fewer than 20 harmful “medicines” by his doctors. The fatal dose was believed to lurk in a bottle of meat juice, this revolting beverage becoming central to the trial. Florence claimed that James had asked her to add arsenic to his dose, believing it would act as a restorative. While this was initially deemed plausible, the revelation that Florence had been entertaining herself with a flashy young man by the name of James Brierley made her actions appear deeply suspicious. Her habit of soaking arsenic-impregnated fly-papers for cosmetic use strengthened the claims of those who suspected her of mariticide. A bewildered Florence was soon arrested and taken into custody.

As Colquhoun explains, a jury comprising plumbers, grocers, and farmers was “charged with determining one of the most complicated toxicological cases of the day,” trying to establish whether a man addicted to arsenic could have been poisoned by that very substance. In the absence of any hard scientific evidence, Florence’s infidelity soon obscured the facts of the case. Judge James Stephen, uncle of Virginia Woolf, thought Florence had done her husband a “dreadful injury” by having an affair, believing this sufficient grounds for convicting her. Given the death penalty was still in place for murder, this was a staggeringly harsh attitude. The trial became “a national morality fable, the inevitable result of too much spirit or too little independence, depending on your point of view”. For some, Florence was a foolish and impressionable young woman who had attempted to care for her cold-hearted husband; for others, she was a callous adulterer who sought to free herself from a loveless marriage. Queen Victoria, never one to sit on the fence, thought Florence’s infidelity proof of her guilt and demanded that she be judged accordingly. Ultimately, the verdict proved inconclusive, and the debate raged for decades afterwards.

Colquhoun is rigorously impartial throughout her story, refusing to divulge her own verdict on Florence’s guilt, and presenting this labyrinthine case with clarity and verve. She doesn’t spare any gory details, although it’s hard to say whether the account of James’s autopsy or the forensic analysis of a profoundly dysfunctional marriage is more uncomfortable to read. There are no conclusive answers here, but through her effervescent narrative Colquhoun exposes bizarre medical practices, the public appetite for sensation, and the precarious position of the Victorian wife. Like Queen Victoria, I’m not one to sit on the fence: I thought Florence innocent of murder. She struck me as a naive and not very bright woman who was trying to relieve the ennui of her circumscribed existence through a fairly inept attempt at adultery. Even her own mother described her as a “woman of little penetration”. With hardly any money of her own, it was in her interests to maintain this sham of a marriage. You might not agree with my verdict, but you can’t fail to be stirred by a dramatic and moving story told by a gifted historian. This is quite possibly one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in recent times, although we’ll never know for sure. The Maybrick coat of arms bore the motto “Time reveals all” – but not in this case.

Did She Kill Him? A Victorian Tale of Deception, Adultery and Arsenic by Kate Colquhoun is available in hardback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: books, reviews

The Convert by Elizabeth Robins (1907)

March 2, 2014 By Catherine Pope

The Convert by Elizabeth RobinsLast year saw the 100th anniversary of the death of Emily Wilding Davison, the brave and determined suffragette who attempted to stop the King’s horse during the Epsom Derby. Many have decried the foolishness of such acts, believing that female suffrage would somehow have happened spontaneously, if only these silly women had been patient; others, however, knew that direct action alone would stimulate a response from an apathetic political elite.

Elizabeth Robins, an American actress and author, advocated militancy as the only way of achieving equality, lending her considerable talents to the campaign. Her play Votes for Women! was performed to packed houses after premièring at the Royal Court Theatre in 1907. Directed by Harley Granville Baker, and with input from Henry James and George Bernard Shaw, the production was a resounding hit with critics. As part of her research, Robins attended numerous suffragette meetings and rallies, using some of the dialogue verbatim. In a scene set during a Trafalgar Square protest, the actresses playing the suffragettes even interacted with the audience – much to their delight.
Having divided the proceeds between the WSPU and NUWSS, Robins decamped to the country and started re-writing the play to produce what is now her best-known work, The Convert, published in 1907. As an established novelist, Robins correctly predicted that this format would garner even more publicity for the suffrage cause. The dramatic structure of the play is evident in the novel, giving it tautness and pace; the lively and authentic dialogue also brings some of the atmosphere of the theatre production to the page.

The story centres on Vida Levering, a society beauty who turns personal tragedy into political triumph by throwing her considerable intellect and energy behind the campaign.  She also uses a guilty secret to gain the support of her ex-lover, rising Tory politician Geoffrey Stonor. In Robins’ novel, the militants are portrayed as noble women who care passionately about their cause, rather than as the bitter troublemakers of popular myth. The quotes from hostile men who turned out to heckle the campaigners are taken from real events, showing the danger these women were prepared to endure in order to stand up for their principles.

Although this is a polemical novel, it is also funny and poignant, giving the reader a sense of what it would have been like to have witnessed these tumultuous and momentous times.

The Convert is available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: books, reviews

Will Warburton (1905) by George Gissing

December 31, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Photo of George GissingI’ve always been slightly chary of Will Warbuton, having been warned that it features a happy ending. Anyone familiar with Gissing’s novels will know that he is relentlessly bleak, and anything else would be plain wrong. Much to my relief, misery still abounds in this story, and Gissing’s characteristic obsession with money, sex, and class is evident throughout.

Will Warburton is an essentially cheery soul whose financial security is destroyed by the recklessness of an unreliable friend. Having only a few hundred pounds in the bank and a widowed mother and a sister to support, the middle-class Warburton resolves to buy a grocery business in South London. Although resigned to this twist of fate, he struggles with the “sickening weariness of routine” and the humiliation of serving behind a counter. Emasculated by his ill-fortune and class relegation, he is easy prey to a dishonest landlady, who exploits his meagre and hard-won income. Indeed, Warburton epitomises Gissing’s ubiquitous trope, that of the man whose iniquitous social position is determined by his financial situation.

Warburton’s fortunes are juxtaposed with those of Norbert Franks, an initially idealistic painter who craves the popular success that will give him enough money to marry. By pandering to commercial tastes, he finds himself the possessor of a considerable fortune and also the hand of Rosamund Elvan, the woman coveted by Warburton. Here there are clear parallels with Gissing’s masterpiece New Grub Street, in which true artist Edward Reardon starves in his garret, while Jasper Milvain successfully exploits the literary marketplace. However, Warburton’s honesty and hard work are ultimately rewarded by modest prosperity and the love of Bertha Cross, a woman who can see the gentleman trapped in the shopkeeper’s apron. Having earned enough money to employ two assistants, he makes a tentative ascent up the social ladder, and contents himself with a reliable, if monotonous, living. Initially merely performing the role of grocer, he eventually embraces it, thereby finding inner peace.

It is Warbuton’s mother-in-law, the appropriately named Mrs Cross, who really steals the show. Trapped indoors on a modest income, her only sport is to make the maid’s life a misery. While most of her domestic drudges tire of being underpaid and underfed and simply find a better position, Martha decides to rebel, demanding “Is that a dinner for a human being, or is it a dinner for a beetle?” After appeasing her gnawing hunger with cheap gin, she proceeds to smash Mrs Cross’s dinner service, finally chasing her round the kitchen table with a poker. It can only be imagined that such antics will relieve the monotony of Warburton’s quotidian existence. Perhaps mindful of following Mrs Cross’s example, Warburton’s sister Jane decides to take up paid employment in her friend’s horticulture business, even though her brother doesn’t “much care for that idea of girls going out to work when they could live quietly at home”.

Will Warbuton met with popular success and favourable reviews, a rare combination for Gissing. Alas, it was his last completed novel and published posthumously, so he was unable to enjoy the rewards of his labours. The author’s failing health is evident in the short chapters and thinness of some scenes. Had he been spared a little longer, I’m sure Gissing would have added the texture that characterises his greatest novels and further developed some of the implications of his intriguing plot. Notwithstanding these compromises, Will Warburton remains one of Gissing’s most endearing creations.

There aren’t any decent editions of Will Warbuton currently in print, but I downloaded a free Kindle version.

Victorian Secrets publishes George Gissing’s Demos, Thyrza, and Workers in the Dawn.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: George Gissing

The Alice Behind Wonderland by Simon Winchester

September 9, 2013 By Catherine Pope

This is a preprint of a review published in Britain and the World, Volume 6, pp. 298-300.

Cover of The Alice Behind Wonderland by Simon WinchesterThe title of this book is slightly misleading, as the reader learns little of Alice Liddell, the girl who famously inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Instead, in this slim volume, Simon Winchester focuses his attention on Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) and his adventures in photography. We learn about Dodgson’s experiences as an awkward youth and his circumscribed life following admission to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he took holy orders and, therefore, a vow of celibacy.

While living at Oxford, Dodgson acquires his Thomas Ottewill Registered Double Folding camera, which arrives with considerable ceremony in a straw-packed wooden crate. His excitement is almost palpable as he unpacks the paraphernalia associated with this pioneering medium, a “confection of shiny mahogany and brass and glassware” (50). Winchester deftly captures the sense of wonder surrounding this magical blend of art and science, with its complicated equipment and eye-wateringly acrid chemicals. This shy and partially-deaf mathematician found the world much easier to deal with when mediated through his camera lens.

Unusually in a book about photography, there is only one photograph: the notorious “Alice Liddell as the Beggar Maid”. This collodian picture, taken in the garden of Christ Church on a summer’s day in 1858, has formed much of the evidence for Dodgson’s alleged paedophilia. It shows the six-year-old Alice, dressed as an urchin and leaning against a wall. Her ragged dress is slipping off the shoulder and her left nipple is just exposed. Her facial expression is difficult to interpret: some see it as sultry or seductive, others as boredom. Given the interminable exposure times in the early days of photography, the latter seems far more likely. The provocative pose has meant that the subject matter has completely overwhelmed Dodgson’s technical achievement in producing such a clean, sharp image when still in the early days of mastering his technique.

In telling the story of this controversial photograph, Winchester tackles many of the popular myths surrounding Charles Dodgson. He discusses the fact that the Victorians (about whom we are all fond of generalising) would have viewed this image as one of innocence, rather than sexual precocity or exploitation. They were able to appreciate the sensuousness of childhood without recourse to the sensual. The author also makes clear that Alice’s family were in attendance for all of the eleven portraits Dodgson took over the course of thirteen years. In fact, Winchester shows that Dodgson was more interested in courting Alice’s sister Ina, who was three years her senior. To the 21st-century reader, that doesn’t place him in a much better light, but such May-December arrangements were unremarkable at the time. Although we shall probably never know the reason behind the subsequent irrevocable rift between Mrs Liddell and Dodgson, Winchester argues that it is just as likely to have been caused by the disruption of his visits as by any unease as to his motivation. Few harassed mothers of large families would appreciate the continual presence of a bumbling academic.

Winchester handles the issues of paedophilia with great sensitivity, avoiding sensation, and considering Dodgson’s behaviour within the context of nineteenth-century sensibilities, rather than our own. Ultimately, Winchester gives Dodgson the benefit of the doubt. This might come across as equivocation in some writers, but instead he is thoughtful and fair-minded, avoiding either simplistic condemnation or peremptory exoneration. The most obvious limitation of the book is the lack of photographs – there is only one small picture of Alice Liddell, although Winchester does examine it in meticulous, almost forensic, detail. While the author does a masterful job of recreating the other visual images in his sumptuous prose, it is, nevertheless, an odd experience not actually seeing them on the page. The book is also frustratingly short – just 93 pages – although its brevity does belie its density, encompassing as it does the history of photography, along with an insightful account of Dodgson’s life. The Alice of the title remains largely hidden, however.

Ironically, even the author himself was unable to view the original photograph that has so profoundly influenced our view of Dodgson. It remains locked inside a basement vault at Princeton University’s Firestone Library, safe from the destructive elements, thereby contributing further to the sense of mystery surrounding this pivotal episode in photographic and literary history. As Dodgson’s diaries were extensively redacted and the adult Alice Liddell declined to discuss her relationship with him, the truth behind this intensely unsettling photograph will never be known. This book, therefore, seeks to discuss the issue calmly and objectively, rather than to reach conclusions or to pass judgement. In a sympathetic, but not indulgent, account, Winchester is successful in conveying, but not defending, the complexities of a curious and enigmatic man.

The Alice Behind Wonderland is available in hardback and Kindle editions

Filed Under: books, reviews

How to Create the Perfect Wife by Wendy Moore

August 4, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Cover of How to Create the Perfect Wife by Wendy MooreIf anything is guaranteed to get my feminist dander up, it’s the idea of wifely perfection, and this enthralling book had me seething from start to finish. On a summer’s day in 1769, wealthy (but unprepossessing) bachelor Thomas Day visited the orphan hospital in Shrewsbury to choose himself a wife. This was not the way a gentleman usually embarked upon courtship, even in the eighteenth century, but at the grand age of twenty-one, Day had already decided that his womanly ideal did not exist: therefore, he would have to create her. He required someone “completely subservient to his needs and whims and utterly in thrall to his ideas and beliefs”.

Considering himself an Enlightenment thinker and an empiricist, Day carefully selected Ann Kingston (orphan no. 4.579), who he renamed Sabrina, believing she would respond favourably  to his rigorous programme of education and training. To hedge his bets, he also bagged himself Dorcas Car, orphan no. 10,413 from an orphanage in London, who was lumbered with the unlikely name of Lucretia. As Moore writes, Day was able to procure these vulnerable infants as easily “as he might buy two shoe buckles”.

It is fair to say that Day was obsessed with the writings of Jean-Jaques Rosseau, and subscribed to his philosophy with all the critical reason of a religious zealot. He was particularly enthused by Rosseau’s novel Emile, the central thesis of which argued that children were essentially good, but became corrupted by the influence of society. Although Rosseau had never intended his work to be a parenting manual, it formed the basis of the extraordinary regime in which Sabrina and Lucretia were forced to endure cold, hunger and pain, alongside an academic curriculum designed to make them a fit companion to a man who considered himself uncommonly clever. Day declared that within twelve months he would decide which of the two girls had the potential to become the perfect wife: “Would he choose the auburn-haired and brown-eyed Sabrina or the blonde-haired and blue-eyed Lucretia? Who would be the lucky winner of the contest to become Mrs Day?” This curious reality show inspired wonder and disgust in Day’s friends, and has a similar effect on the modern reader, who can at least observe the ghastly spectacle from a safe historical distance.

Fortunately for her, Lucretia turned out to be “invincibly stupid”, and was paid off with £400 and apprenticed to a milliner, a very good outcome for one who’d had such a bad start in life. Sabrina was left on her own with Day, who was determined to create her in his own image. She suffered torments such as Day dropping hot was on her bare back and arms, sticking pins in her flesh, and firing weapons dangerously close to her head – all of which were supposed to build strength of character, and presumably a high tolerance for unreasonable behaviour. Astonishingly, this routine did not form the basis of a successful relationship and Sabrina, too, was dismissed. Day’s experiment had failed with the realisation that girls generally aren’t biddable creatures.

He next turned his asinine attentions to Honora Sneyd, who was at least someone closer to his own age and also in a position to make her own decisions. Although initially attracted by his lively (if misguided) mind, “[t]here was just something about Day’s vision of married bliss in a remote hovel in complete subservience to his every whim that apparently didn’t appeal”. Day was repeatedly drawn to clever, independent-thinking women, but was then astonished when they didn’t reciprocate the feelings of a rather grubby-looking despot. He wanted a wife to be intelligent to serve his needs, not so she could pursue her own interests; he simply required a woman who could understand what he was blathering on about and indulge his pseudo-intellectualism. As a wealthy man, Day truly believed he could have whatever he wanted, and he can’t be faulted on his perseverance.

Day is a thoroughly objectionable, yet oddly compelling figure. As with many biographical subjects, it is his contradictions that make him fascinating –  an adamant abolitionist, he saw nothing wrong with enslaving and abusing his victims; applauded for his liberal views on women’s education, he strongly resisted any idea of female subjectivity. It would be easy to present Day as a risible character, but Moore is tactful in presenting his fallacious ideas, without indulging their more egregious manifestations, and never hiding her glee when women get the better of him and his disastrous schemes.

Reading the blurb for this book, I feared it might be a relentlessly miserable and disturbing read; however, Wendy Moore is a gifted storyteller, handling her material with great verve and wit. As with her previous books, the archival research is used to build a rich and satisfying narrative and it is full of illuminating and ghastly detail. How to Create the Perfect Wife epitomises the historic powerlessness of women, but also showcases their remarkable resilience.

How to Create the Perfect Wife: Georgian Britain’s most ineligible bachelor and his quest to cultivate the ideal woman by Wendy Moore. Available in hardback and Kindle editions.

 

Filed Under: biography, books, reviews

Robert Elsmere by Mrs Humphry Ward

July 27, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Front cover of Robert ElsmereWhen Mrs Humphry Ward first had the idea for her bestselling novel Robert Elsmere (1888), she wrote to her publisher that it was all planned and that she would take “five quiet months in the country to write it. It will be two volumes”. The gestation period of what she referred to as her “baby” was actually three years and her patient publisher was appalled to receive a 1,358-page manuscript, containing nearly three-quarters of a million words. Pruned to a more portable 800 pages, this story of religious doubt became a literary phenomenon, sparking controversy and selling by the truckload.

It’s hard to imagine now that a novel about a clergyman experiencing a crisis of faith should become a bestseller, but then it is easy to underestimate the centrality of religion during the Victorian period.  While for some people developments in geological and evolutionary science had already weakened the authority of the Bible, it was the historicist approach to biblical criticism that seriously undermined its status. By studying the Bible in its historical context, its more controversial tenets could be dismissed as anachronisms, rather than accepted as timeless decrees. Furthermore, textual errors showed the Bible to be disappointingly fallible.  This “enlightenment” was hugely disruptive to a profoundly Christian society, and many sought to explore the relevance of their faith in the modern world.

Robert Elsmere opens in the Lake District, with loving descriptions of the Westmoreland countryside. The serious-minded Catherine Leyburn prevaricates over whether she should accept the marriage proposal of young clergyman Robert Elsmere, or stay at home to care for her widowed mother. Love triumphs over duty, and the couple move to a new living in Surrey. Here Elsmere is given access to Squire Wendover’s library, containing a large collection of books on biblical criticism, and he engages in long debates with intellectuals intent on testing his faith.  Rather than becoming an atheist, Elsmere pursues the philosophy of “constructive liberalism,” stressing the importance of social work among the poor and uneducated. He moves to slums of East London, where he establishes the New Brotherhood of Christ.

Elsmere’s tergiversations captivated the reading public, with the novel selling more than 1 million copies. Ward bagged around £4,000 in royalties, which today would put her in the millionaire author bracket. Her earnings would have been significantly higher if it weren’t for the absence of international copyright laws. Many cheap US editions were rushed to press to cash in on this runaway success; some were sold as loss leaders for just 4 cents, and others were given away free with every cake of Maine’s Balsam Fir Soap.  Remarkably, a US playwright was desperate to adapt Robert Elsmere for the stage, but Ward refused. Not everyone appreciated Ward’s heterodoxy, and William Gladstone wrote a 10,000-word review, detailing his objections to the novel.

I discovered Robert Elsmere five years ago and was astonished that such an extraordinary novel was no longer in print. It seems that publishers were deterred by its size and complexity. However, thanks to the sterling editorship of Miriam Burstein, I’m pleased to say that the Victorian Secrets edition is now published. It was certainly a labour of love, and it took us several years to get it to press (only slightly less time than Ward spent writing it). The marvel of modern technology means that it is reduced to “just” 682 pages, and those with bad backs can download the Kindle edition.

Robert Elsmere certainly isn’t a page-turner, but its importance to the Victorians means it remains a significant and interesting book.

Filed Under: books, reviews, Victorian Secrets Tagged With: Victorian Secrets

Fanny and Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England by Neil McKenna

May 20, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Fanny and Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian EnglandTo be decadent in an age of utility was unforgivable, as Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton were to find out in a trial that scandalised London in 1870. Better known as Fanny and Stella, the two young clerks were arrested and charged with outraging public decency by dressing as women and “conspiring to incite others to commit unnatural offences”.  As there were no specific laws against cross-dressing and “unnatural offences” (ie buggery) were difficult to prove, the court case was as oblique as it was sensational.  In this enthralling account, Neil McKenna chronicles the arrest and cross-examination of Ernest “Stella” Boulton and Frederick “Fanny” Park by using court transcriptions and letters between the accused and their circle. Where there are gaps, McKenna uses his imagination, inhabiting their world seamlessly and appropriating the colourful language of fin-de-siècle London.

The jury took just fifty-two minutes to find Fanny and Stella “not guilty”, but the damage to their reputations had already been done, and they were obliged to adopt an uncharacteristically low profile. The building was already surrounded by a crowd baying for the “He-She Ladies,” as they were dubbed, and the press were obsessed with exposing them to ridicule.  Both had tried desperately to conform to traditional ideas of Victorian masculinity, but it wasn’t for them. They delighted in the camp seediness of the demi-monde, putting on performances and attracting attention (and business) from handsome young men. Stella had even managed to bag herself an aristocrat, Lord Arthur Clinton, with whom she lived as husband and wife. As her elective “sister”, Fanny often stayed with them, too. Their lively milieu included gaudy prostitutes called Lady Jane Grey and the Maid of Athens.

Although some of their activities would raise eyebrows even in today’s more permissive society, Fanny and Stella’s “crimes” were victimless. It came as a great surprise, therefore, to find themselves in a police station and subjected to deeply humiliating examinations. Even more surprising was the revelation that they had been under surveillance for a whole year, with police officers watching them day and night and also rummaging through their belongings. The court case served only to expose the hypocrisy and bigotry of those who sought to entrap them, especially those who derived perverse pleasure from their ordeal. The failure of the authorities to prosecute Fanny and Stella came as a huge relief to the liberal-minded, who feared that a guilty verdict would have initiated a crusade against anyone who dared to be different.

While Fanny and Stella had more detractors than supporters, their own families were surprisingly sympathetic.  Indeed, Mrs Boulton almost steals the show when she takes to the witness box. She loved her son for who he was, tenaciously supporting him throughout and not giving a hoot what anybody thought. Her refusal to believe that Stella was touting for business came across at the time as affecting innocence, but a modern cynic might see it as craftily disingenuous.

McKenna’s writing style is unashamedly camp as his subjects, but it suits the book perfectly, giving a sense of their exuberance and vivacity. His genuine enthusiasm and affection for the subject is evident on every page. The research is impeccable and story placed firmly within its historical context, without distracting the reader from the stars of this show.  Usually consigned to the footnotes of Victorian history, here Fanny and Stella are given the prominence they deserve.

Fanny and Stella is available in hardback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: books, reviews

Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England

May 9, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Inconvenient People by Sarah WiseThe trouble with reading a lot of Victorian potboilers is that they start to seem like reality. The madwoman in the attic is a pervasive image throughout nineteenth-century culture, from Bertha Mason, through to Laura Fairlie and Lady Audley. In this gripping and insightful study, Sarah Wise reveals that it was actually husbands who were most at risk of being detained against their will. It makes sense when you think about it: men were the main inheritors of wealth, also assuming their wife’s property upon marriage. Consequently, there was a “high bar” set for men to prove themselves fit to control that wealth, and every incentive for their enemies to demonstrate otherwise.

In Inconvenient People, Wise focuses on twelve case histories, embellishing them with details from many more, and the depth of research builds a rich narrative. Some of the stories are harrowing, other plain bizarre, and there’s also the occasional moment of levity, such as the man who thought one of his legs belonged to Madame Vestris. Wise has an acute eye for comic detail, but never trivialises the subject.

The case I found most haunting was that of Edward Davies, a socially awkward tea trader from London, whose mother confined him to a lunatic asylum so that she could seize his share of their flourishing business. His gaucheness was almost his undoing, with every action seen as confirmation of his insanity. He suffered greatly from the loss of privacy and dignity; continuously under surveillance, even his bowel movements were observed and measured.

Of course, the stereotypical madwoman in the attic did have some basis in fact, perhaps epitomised by the unhappy wife of the uncelebrated author, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Wise made me squeal with delight when she described his “flatulent, mouldy prose style’. He didn’t have much to commend him as a human being, either – sending his children to a boarding house when they were will, and insisting they addressed him as “Mr Bulwer”. Bulwer-Lytton also mistreated his bewitchingly beautiful wife, Rosina. When eight months pregnant, he made her repeatedly climb the library stairs to fetch books, kicking her in the torso when she protested. This was one of many violent attacks. Unlike many Victorian women, Rosina refused to suffer in silence, publicly humiliating her husband whenever she got the chance. When he campaigned to be elected as an MP, Rosina made a surprise appearance at the hustings, prompting him to run away in terror (some accounts claim he fainted). She then lectured the assembled throng on her husband’s shortcomings. Bulwer-Lytton wreaked his revenge by having her confined to an asylum, beyond the reach of friends and family. Even there she was able to attract attention, loudly proclaiming to passers-by that Disraeli was a sodomite and having an affair with her husband. Although her remaining years were marred by bitterness and ostracism, Rosina did at least have the satisfaction of outliving her husband by seven years.
The redoubtable Georgina Weldon was more effective at curtailing her own husband’s attempt to bury her away. In court, she successfully challenged both him and the mad-doctors who had tried to snatch her at his behest. Her experiences subsequently influenced a change in the lunacy laws, as she had clearly demonstrated how a sane person could be detained for no good reason.

As Wise observes, part of the problem lay in the definition of “sanity”, which she describes as “a Mad Hatter’s tea party of shifting positions”. All too often, “insanity” meant a failure to conform to somebody else’s expectations. Unfortunately, some lessons were not learned, and the book concludes with the depressing story of three women discovered languishing in an asylum in the 1970s. Between them, they had served 110 years for having a child out of wedlock in the 1920s. It’s a particularly chilling example and one that illustrates perfectly the abuse of power that underpins our definition of madness.

Inconvenient People is an important book and one that contributes an enormous amount to our understanding of the nineteenth century.

Filed Under: books, reviews

Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography by Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport

April 25, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Capturing the LightAnyone who has developed their own photographs will recall that miraculous moment as the image slowly materialises before your very eyes. The story behind the discovery of this alchemical technique is no less exciting.

As with most good stories, there is a rivalry at its heart, albeit an unintentional one. During the 1830s two men on opposite sides of the Channel threw their considerable talents into one quest: to permanently capture a camera image on paper. Their characters couldn’t have been more different. Louis Daguerre was a flamboyant artist of humble parentage and limited education; Henry Fox Talbot had been born into the English landed gentry and went on to graduate from Cambridge. Talbot was the archetypal gentleman scientist, funding his hobby with a generous trust fund; Daguerre, meanwhile, was obliged to earn while he learned, becoming an extraordinarily accomplished painter of stage effects. Notwithstanding their differences, both men managed to simultaneously develop their own process for ‘capturing the light’.

In Capturing the Light, Helen Rappaport and Roger Watson unravel the drama surrounding these pioneering men in alternate chapters, conveying the complexity of scientific ideas through clear and engaging prose. Those on Talbot reflect the orderliness of a man who blessed future biographers with 10,000 letters and 300 notebooks. While his life is meticulously documented, Daguerre’s is obfuscated by a web of apocryphal stories and the cultivation of a personal mythology.

Contrasted with the mercurial Daguerre, Talbot comes across as rather ponderous, and it comes as no surprise when the enterprising Frenchman grabs all the glory with his daguerreotype. Although Talbot had by then perfected his own calotype process, it was Daguerre’s invention that was announced to the world in January 1839. His notebooks show that the original idea had popped into Talbot’s head while on honeymoon at Lake Como in 1833, yet he didn’t stir himself to publish any papers. Thanks to this dithering, Talbot earned the ridicule of his peers and even to this day has never received the credit he deserves. Possibly far worse was the disappointment of his mother, Lady Elisabeth, who devoted her remaining years to chivying him into action, outraged that her clever son has proved so inept at self-promotion.

While Talbot kicked himself, the scientific community seized on these new discoveries, quickly refining them into the processes we recognise today. The press were divided, with one newspaper dismissing photography as “drawing by sunshine”, and another exhorting its readers to tie photogenic paper to the tail of a kite so “when it comes down you will have a view of the earth upon it” (an early form of Google Streetview, perhaps?) Others were quick to spot more covert applications. In 1839 the Morning Post reported on a jealous French husband obtaining photographic evidence of his wife’s infidelity and successfully presenting it in court. By the end of the century, the same newspaper was marveling that the camera had “become as indispensable as the bicycle”. These days photography has become an almost everyday activity, and even an inadvertent one. When clearing personal data from a mobile phone recently, I was astonished to discover over 200 photos of the inside of my handbag.

Capturing the Light reads like a  historical thriller, the well-paced narrative evoking both the exhilaration and frustration experienced by those in the vanguard of scientific discovery.

Victorian Secrets publishes No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War by Helen Rappaport

Filed Under: books, reviews

No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War by Helen Rappaport

March 8, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Cover of No Place for Ladies: The untold story of women in the Crimean War by Helen RappaportAs Russophobia gripped Britain, the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854 provoked joy among many who wanted to give the “Rooshians” a jolly good beating. At the forefront of the warmongers was Queen Victoria, who longed to don armour and join soldiers on the frontline. But this imagined glory soon faded to reveal the harsh realities of conflict, and the queen spent much of her time writing letters of condolence to bereaved families, and also quietly funding the fitting of prosthetic limbs for the injured.

The bungled Charge of the Light Brigade left the reputation of the British military in tatters, and the subsequent squabbles were just as unedifying. Further battles were similarly devastating, leaving thousands dead or seriously wounded, and the bitterly cold weather compounded the prevailing sense of misery. Finally, the authorities back home realised that help was needed and despatched a part of thirty-eight nurses. Among them was Florence Nightingale, a remarkable woman whose forceful character often dominates accounts of the Crimea. Although in the book Helen Rappaport credits Nightingale’s many achievements, her focus is on the women whose stories remain largely untold: Fanny Duberly, the energetic and indomitable officer’s wife, whose eyewitness accounts of key battles give us a uniquely vivid perspective on the human (and equine) cost of war; and Mary Seacole, the Jamaican-born nurse who overcame institutional racism in her determination to help the men risking their lives.

It is Mary Seacole who really shines in Rappaport’s magnificent book. Although she had considerable nursing experience, Seacole was turned down as an official volunteer on the grounds that a “West Indian constitution is no the one best able to bear the fatigue of nurse,”  a spectacularly offensive and fatuous claim, given Britain’s earlier willingness to exploit black women as slaves. Undaunted, Seacole simply paid for her own transport, establishing herself just outside Balaclava. There she set up ‘The British Hotel’, providing home comforts to the military, and also acting as “doctress, nurse, and mother”. Although she attracted criticism for running what was in some respect a clubhouse, that was exactly what the men wanted, and the prices paid by officers meant that Seacole could distribute free food to the poor soldiers. Apart from making life more comfortable for her visitors, Seacole also possessed the same skill and experience of a male doctor, and her medical interventions improved the recovery prospects of many wounded men.

Given her significant contribution, it is hard to fathom why Mary Seacole has been effectively whitewashed from our history. If Lords Cardigan, Raglan and Lucan can be remembered for their incompetence, then why shouldn’t Seacole be immortalised for her bravery and compassion? Historians, including Helen Rappaport, have done much to raise awareness, but some of this good work has been undone by Michael Gove in his misguided attempt to remove Seacole from the National Curriculum. While it is true that her contribution specifically to the nursing profession did not rival that of Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole is undeniably an important part of our history, and a figure who represents our diversity. Let us celebrate this enterprising and inspirational woman.

No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War is available in a Kindle edition.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, reviews, Victorian Secrets

The Victorian City by Judith Flanders

December 18, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Victorian City by Judith FlandersMuch as I would like to pay a visit to Victorian London, I fear my acute olfactory sense would send me scurrying back to the 21st century. Fortunately, in The Victorian City Judith Flanders has allowed me to experience the sights, sounds and dubious smells of the heaving metropolis without leaving my armchair.

During the nineteenth century, London’s population doubled, exacerbating the problems of poverty and squalor that have become so emblematic of the age. While Charles Dickens is famed for his literary imagination, he was also a keen observer of the life that teemed all around him. He thought nothing of walking 30 miles per day (and often by night), and during these excursions would chronicle tiny details of the era that has come to be named after him. As Flanders points out, “in Dickens’ own time, the way people lived was not Dickensian, merely life,” and it was a hard life. Young watercress-sellers would tramp the streets for hours on end, just to earn a few pence – hopefully enough to buy them a hot potato or some whelks on the way home. Pie-sellers also scratched out a meagre leaving, their margins eaten away by the Corn Laws. To the delight of small boys, however, they would always toss a coin: if the customer won, he got the pie for free.

Those with better-paid work could afford to take the omnibus, but that was precarious mode of transport. In the 1840s, buses were equipped with straps that ran along the roof and were attached with hooks to the drivers’ arms. When passengers wanted to alight on the left-hand side of the road, they pulled the left strap, and vice versa, with inevitable results. While a coach might guarantee more control over the final destination, it was not conducive to conversation. As Flanders observes, the noise would have been deafening – what with the horse’s hooves, the wheels, and the general throng – and Dickens’ characters would often ask the driver to stop so that they might hear one another speak.

Although Dickens is central to the narrative, Flanders deftly handles a variety of voices, including George Augustus Sala, Arthur Munby, and even ‘Walter’, the pseudonymous author of the eleven-volume erotic memoir My Secret Life. What emerges from the cacophony of Victorian London is a clear and captivating evocation of what it must have been like to live in this extraordinary age. The detail is meticulous but never ponderous, and nothing fails to fascinate. The Mayhew-style vignettes of people and places are punctuated by insights into key events that encapsulate London life: the Berners Street Hoax, the Tooley Street Fire, the Regent’s Park Skating Disaster, and the funeral of the Duke of Wellington.

Fellow Victorianists will delight in the wealth of information this book contains and Flanders is a perfect tour guide for the Victorian City: insightful, intrepid, witty and engaging.

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London is available in hardback and Kindle editions. I am reliably informed that Primrose Hill Books will send copies with personalised dedications anywhere in the world.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: Dickens, london

The Day Parliament Burned Down by Caroline Shenton

December 16, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Day Parliament Burned Down by Caroline Shenton“Never was a spectacle so much enjoyed,” wrote Letitia Landon of the fire that destroyed the old Palace of Westminster on 16th October 1834.  Hundreds of thousands of people gathered to watch open-mouthed, as eight centuries of tradition went up in smoke. There was no need to inform King William IV of this terrible event – the flames were clearly visible from Windsor Castle, some twenty miles away. Queen Adelaide allegedly deemed the fire “divine retribution” for the great Reform Act of 1832, which had egregiously extended the franchise, bringing the country perilously close to democracy. Others saw it differently: an elderly man was arrested for cheering in delight, “This is what we wanted – this ought to have happened years ago.” But there was no agency involved; incompetence had succeeded where Guy Fawkes had failed.

Lord Melbourne referred to the fire as “One of the greatest instances of stupidity on record,” and it’s difficult to disagree with him. The problem started when staff set about burning tallies, wooden sticks that had been used as receipts in an old sinecure-ridden department. The immense heat generated melted the copper flues under the Lords’ Chamber and then the blaze took hold. Although floors were burning hot and almost unbearable to stand upon, staff merely commented “hmm, it’s a bit toasty in here,” while hopping from foot to foot. In the grip of inertia, they declined to take action until it was too late. When a visitor commented on the heat and smoke, deputy housekeeper Mrs Wright informed him there was nothing to worry about. By 6.30pm, flames exploded from the roof and astonished bystanders were treated to an unprecedented display.

Fortunately, other people conducted themselves with more professionalism, such as James Braidwood, superintendent of the London Fire Engine Establishment, who bravely fought to control the fire, and Thomas Phillipps, a distraught antiquary who desperately tried to rescue irreplaceable parliamentary records from the flames. Heroism was not restricted to bipeds – Chance, the fire brigade dog, leapt straight into the centre of the action, although his precise contribution is unknown.

In The Day Parliament Burned Down, Caroline Shenton provides a gripping hour-by-hour account of the conflagration and its immediate aftermath. The clever way in which the day unfolds gives the reader a sense of being themselves an eyewitness, albeit from a safe distance. Shenton embraces a rich array of material, from the official enquiry report, through to private letters and diaries. Although the focus is on one day, it is set neatly within its historical context, recreating a vivid sense of a tumultuous age characterised by poverty and protest. This book is history at its best, told by an historian with a firm grasp of her subject and talent for telling a story.

The Day Parliament Burned Down is available in hardback and Kindle editions

Filed Under: books, reviews

The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician by Julia Boyd

November 18, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Excellent Doctor Blackwell by Julia BoydEven Punch, a magazine frequently hostile to the emancipated woman, felt grudging admiration for Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), the first woman doctor to be registered in Britain. From a 21st-century perspective, with women doctors now in the majority, it’s difficult to appreciate just how hard it was for these indefatigable pioneers, who encountered considerable hostility and even violence when pursuing their vocation.

Blackwell’s early years were less combative, growing up part of a  loving family in Bristol. Her father’s sugar refining business provided a good standard of living, although its reliance on slavery proved difficult to reconcile with his liberal politics. The liveliness of the household was tempered somewhat by the Blackwell grandparents, who are described as a “gloomy presence”. Blackwell Snr once nailed up all the cupboards, condemning them as “slut holes”, and his domineering behaviour was an early lesson in gender politics for Elizabeth and her sisters.

In 1828 the sugar refinery burned down and a series of poor business decisions exacerbated the repercussions. Relishing the prospect of a new start, and perhaps prompted by the political unrest that gripped Bristol, the Blackwells decided to emigrate to New York. Eleven-year-old Elizabeth seems to have accepted this momentous change philosophically, but it must have been disruptive for a girl approaching the ghastliness of adolescence.

Unfortunately, the Blackwells’ arrival coincided with the publication of Fanny Trollope’s mischievous Domestic Manners of the Americans, which did little to ease their transition into another culture, where those from the mother country were now viewed with suspicion. Notwithstanding this tension, the family soon established themselves in business and were able to move to prosperous Long Island. Any hopes of respectability were dashed, however, when Elizabeth’s Uncle Charles plunged into a bigamous marriage with the governess.

Renewed financial problems and the death of Mr Blackwell left the family penniless and struggling for survival. Like many women who found themselves in similar circumstances, the Blackwells had no option but to seek teaching work, despite having no liking for children. Aged only nineteen, Elizabeth Blackwell was stuck in a job she hated, and with no prospect of escape. A move to Kentucky made matters worse for the passionate opponent of slavery. There she was appalled when a young black girl was placed as a screen between her and a fire.

It was the publication of Margaret Fuller’s seminal work Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) that prompted Blackwell to think about her future direction. When a dying friend told her she would much rather consult a woman doctor, Blackwell started to seriously consider medicine as a career. While this decision seems straightforward, it was mainly thanks to a series of oversights that she realised her ambition, and her choice of profession remained deeply controversial during her lifetime.

Blackwell’s application to New York’s Geneva Medical College in 1847 was accepted in principle, although on the cunning proviso that the final decision rested with the students (who, it was assumed, would reject her outright). As it happened, there was only one voice of dissent and its owner was quickly beaten into submission. While this might appear a refreshingly enlightened episode, the students thought it all an elaborate hoax and were merely playing along. Before they knew what had happened, Blackwell had registered and her studies were underway. When she graduated, on 23 January 1849, the Dean marked the occasion with a speech to honour their unusual student’s achievement. He spoiled it, however, by adding that “Such cases must ever be too few to disturb the existing relations of society.”

The newly qualified Dr Blackwell decided to move back to England, settling in London so as to gain valuable experience at metropolitan hospitals. While treating a baby infected with gonorrhoea, contaminated fluid squirted in Blackwell’s eye, leaving it sightless, disfigured and protruding. It was a cruel irony that a woman who probably remained a virgin should have her life blighted by a sexually transmitted disease. On that fateful day, her hopes of becoming a surgeon were dashed and she was obliged to wear a glass eye.

Determined to make a difference nonetheless, Blackwell returned to America with her sister Lucy and established the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children. Their insistence on treating black patients made the clinic a target for segregationists, and Blackwell found life tough. Meanwhile, her brother Henry married Lucy Stone, an impressive feminist who refused to take his name or to include the word “obey” in the marriage service. Henry himself became a proud feminist, publicly renouncing his masculine privileges. This extraordinary family was extended when brother Sam married Antoinette Brown, the first woman in America to be ordained a minister.

Although the Blackwells did so much to challenge convention, Elizabeth herself had no interest in the formal women’s rights movement and declined to be involved in Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. She enjoyed being a figurehead in the world of medicine, believing that to be a more effective contribution to female emancipation. It’s hard to disagree with her – a decade after her graduation, there were 200 women doctors practising in America. She also inspired Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman to qualify as a doctor in Britain. A certain George Eliot was so impressed that she sent a letter, expressing how much she would like to know Dr Blackwell. Florence Nightingale remained unconvinced, finding only a strong-minded woman who dared to contradict her.

In 1858 Blackwell became the first woman to be placed on the newly formed British Medical Register, which permitted the inclusion of doctors holding foreign degrees. The authorities were aghast to discover that they had failed to specifically exclude women, quickly closing the loophole. When Blackwell returned to England in 1869, there was still considerable hostility against women doctors. The opposition was led by Professor Robert Christison, whose sound scientific reasoning was that original sin rendered women unfit to practice medicine. Women who attempted to attend anatomy lessons had both mud and abuse hurled at them, although this loutish behaviour actually helped the cause of women doctors, who conducted themselves with dignity throughout.
Blackwell’s return to England also coincided with the passing of the third Contagious Diseases Act, legislation that allowed authorities to confine and forcibly treat prostitutes suspected of carrying venereal disease. Blackwell sensibly pronounced that the government should be addressing the causes of prostitution, rather than its effects. Although in many ways a moral conservative, Blackwell was outspoken on female sexuality, challenging the convenient misconception that women were sexless creatures. She was also ahead of her time in recognising the concept of marital rape, an abuse not outlawed until 1991.

Elizabeth Blackwell was a formidable woman whose outspoken and often idiosyncratic behaviour made her an uncomfortable role model for feminists. It is hard to overstate her achievements, however, and her impact on the course of social history is equalled by only a handful of luminaries. Julia Boyd’s superb biography reveals Blackwell as a complex, tenacious and often frustrating character whose extraordinary single-mindedness changed our world. Like all skilled biographers, Boyd celebrates Blackwell’s achievements without becoming overly deferential to her subject. We see Blackwell’s faults, but cannot fail to be cheered by her brilliance.

The Excellent Doctor Blackwell:The Life of the First Woman Physician by Julia Boyd is available in hardback

Filed Under: biography, reviews Tagged With: bigamy, biography, medicine

Weeds by Jerome K. Jerome

October 31, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Weeds by Jerome K. JeromeJerome K. Jerome is famous, of course, for writing one of the funniest books in the English language: Three Men in a Boat. What is less well known is that he desperately tried to reinvent himself as a serious author. Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters was published anonymously in 1892, Jerome hoping that the novella would be judged on its own merits, rather than compared unfavourably with his comic tales of irascible terriers and tinned pineapple. Unfortunately for him, his publisher Arrowsmith was nervous about the story’s frank portrayal of adultery and it was never made available for general sale during the author’s lifetime.

While the Victorians’ moral squeamishness can be difficult to fathom for the modern reader, it’s not difficult to see why the edition was pulled. This disturbing narrative of sexual corruption shows marital fidelity as a perpetual struggle, with anti-hero Dick Selwyn falling for the attractions of his wife’s nubile young cousin. The link between his mental and physical corruption is sustained through a central metaphor of a weed-infested garden, which perishes through neglect (as predicted by the lugubrious narrator). Although there is the occasional comedic flash, this is a powerful evocation of fin-de-siecle society and its fears of degeneration.

Now, Jerome K. Jerome was no friend of the New Woman, but what really attracted me to Weeds was its radical ending (I shan’t spoil it), which embodies a clear challenge to the prevailing sexual double standard and casts an important light on late-Victorian gender ideology. I discovered when publishing Jerome’s biography that he was a complex and often contradictory man, and this story epitomises it more than any other.

Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters is available in print and Kindle editions. It includes Mona Caird’s brilliant essay ‘Does Marriage Hinder a Woman’s Self-Development’.

 

Filed Under: books, reviews, Victorian Secrets Tagged With: adultery, divorce, fin de siecle, Jerome K. Jerome, marriage, New Woman

Hope and Glory: A Life of Dame Clara Butt

October 11, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Hope and Glory: A Life of Dame Clara ButtSir Thomas Beecham cheekily remarked that when she sang in Dover, Dame Clara Butt could be heard in Calais. If you’ve listened to her rousing performances of Hope and Glory on YouTube, you’ll know that he had a point. Standing an Amazonian 6’2″ tall, Dame Clara was a towering cultural icon of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, symbolising the glory of an empire on which the sun never set. She won fans all around the world, performing concerts in America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India, and commanding five-figure fees. With her entourage of 20 staff, she would sail the seven seas to reach her adoring public.

Although from humble origins as a trawlerman’s daughter, everyone knew that Clara was destined for a glittering career. Queen Victoria felt strongly enough to actually pay for some of her studies, and Clara became a firm friend of the royal family. Success turned her into a formidable woman, but Clara worked tirelessly to raise funds for good causes, and was honoured with a damehood for raising morale during the dark days of World War One.

Clara’s incredible talent brought her much joy, but she also suffered great tragedy in her personal life, losing two of her children and enduring crippling back pain. She sought solace in Theosophy, travelling to India, where she met Mahatma Gandhi and the socialist reformer Annie Besant. Even when diagnosed with a virulent form of spinal cancer, she immediately planned a final tour of Australia (most of us would take to our beds with some hard drugs). She died with great courage, in the same week as both George V and Rudyard Kipling, and the world was a sadder place without her.

I knew very little about Dame Clara before receiving the proposal for this biography, but was immediately captivated by the story of this extraordinary woman. One hundred years ago she was a household name and rarely out of the newspapers, but now she is known mainly by music aficionados. Working on the biography of Eugen Sandow last year made me realise that celebrity is ephemeral and even megastars are seldom remembered much beyond their own lifetime. Dame Clara is certainly one who should be celebrated all over again.

Hope and Glory: A Life of Dame Clara Butt by Maurice Leonard is available in print, Kindle and EPUB editions.

Filed Under: biography, books, reviews Tagged With: biography, empire

Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome

September 30, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. JeromeI must confess to never having given much thought to the man behind Three Men in a Boat, one of the funniest books in the English language. When the manuscript for a biography of Jerome K. Jerome arrived on my desk, I expected to read about a lively and carefree man who never took life very seriously.  Instead, I discovered a complex, often dark, figure who was frustrating, comic and challenging in equal measure.

Many of his opinions seem painfully misguided to the modern reader, but Jerome was always prepared to admit he was wrong after reaching a better understanding of a thorny issue. He never really got to grips with the New Woman, but Jerome was a tireless campaigner for the animal welfare movement, and was always ready to champion the underdog, even if it landed him in court.

Jerome’s tenacity and lugubriousness can be ascribed in part to his difficult upbringing in Walsall with his Micawberish father and God-fearing mother. Living under the constant threat of poverty and damnation, the young Jerome was an enigmatic child who craved security and recognition. His life was transformed by a momentous move to the Fairy City of London, where a formative encounter with Charles Dickens influenced his choice of profession. Like his mentor, Jerome was forever associated with his comic creations, and never taken seriously as a diverse and innovative author.

Although famous primarily for his tale of jolly chaps larking about on the Thames, Jerome wrote seven other novels and was also a prolific journalist, essayist and dramatist, leaving behind a prodigious quantity of work, belying his famous quote “I like work. It fascinates me. I could sit and look at it for hours.” One of his most unusual books is Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters, a shocking (for the time) and painful account of how adultery destroys a new marriage. Such was its force that the publisher seems not to have released it to the reading public. Had Jerome been associated with this novella during his lifetime, he might have earned a very different reputation.

Jerome K. Jerome’s complexity, idiosyncrasies and exquisite wit are all conveyed with great skill by Carolyn Oulton, and it was astonishing to me that this was the first biography of him in many decades, and the only one to delve into his early life. I hope other readers enjoy it as much as I did.

Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome by Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton

Filed Under: biography, books, reviews Tagged With: biography, Jerome K. Jerome

Effie by Suzanne Fagence Cooper

August 3, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Effie by Suzanne Fagence CooperHistory has not been kind to Effie Gray. Her first husband, John Ruskin, was supposedly terrified by her lower portions on their wedding night, while exasperated historians have blamed her for ruining the career of her second husband, John Millais. In this moving biography, Suzanne Fagence Cooper puts Effie centre stage, and we see her for the first time as an individual, as well as within the context of her two famous marriages.

Euphemia Chalmers Gray (1828-97) was the oldest of fifteen children, of whom only eight survived. What might have been an idyllic childhood in Scotland was punctuated by premature death and continual grief. This sadness notwithstanding, the Grays were a lively and close family, and Effie was happiest when with them. She was just twelve when John Ruskin first set eyes on her, and he was nearly twice her age at twenty-one. It is fair to say that his taste was for prepubescent girls – a taste more socially acceptable in those days, but unutterably creepy in our own. For most middle-class Victorian girls, marriage provided the only opportunity for leaving the family home and seeing something of the world.  In marrying an up-and-coming art critic, Effie envisaged a life of glittering parties and international travel, never imagining the reality of what being Mrs Ruskin might entail.

After a long and bumpy courtship, the couple married on 10 April 1848, the very day the Chartists marched on Hyde Park, and during a tumultuous period that saw Europe gripped by revolutionary fever. This unrest set the keynote for the Ruskins’ unhappy six-year marriage, notorious for Ruskin’s inability to stage his own uprising. Their wedding night is, of course, legendary, and it is handled with great deftness by the author. Cooper makes a convincing argument that it is unlikely Ruskin was repelled by his young wife’s pubic hair. As an art critic, he was used to viewing salacious images and must have been prepared for the spectacle of a naked woman. What he hadn’t anticipated was menstruation, and Cooper believes he was revolted by this bodily function. He eventually confessed to her “that the reason he did not make me his Wife is that he was disgusted with my person the first evening”.

It was as though Effie had lost her enigma and thereafter Ruskin had no interest in her, other than as an attractive possession.  When she suffered another family loss, he became irritated by the interruption to his studies. Furthermore, his elderly and pernickety parents always came first, and they were equally protective of their son. Any visible marital problems were quickly ascribed to Effie’s faults. His mistake was in confusing art with life, commenting cruelly that “the Alps will not wrinkle … but her cheeks will”. As Cooper writes, “Sadly, he was so bound up with the big picture, he failed to see what was needed on a domestic scale,” acknowledging his brilliance as an art critic, but not accepting this as an excuse for his failings as a husband.

Effie wrote heartbreaking letters to her parents, imploring them to help her escape this “unnatural” relationship. Meanwhile, Ruskin’s advocacy of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood brought the dashing John Everett Millais into their circle. This talented young artist was troubled by Ruskin’s neglect of his wife, becoming close to her when she sat as his model. It was clear to all that the marriage was doomed and both sides were focused on damage limitation. Ruskin bragged to his young sister-in-law Sophy that he could get rid of Effie whenever he wanted – an early lesson in masculine privilege that possibly affected her later life. He incorrectly assumed that his wife would do anything to avoid the ignominy of a medical examination, thinking he could have her declared insane and locked away. However, the evidence showed that Mrs Ruskin was still a virgin, nearly six years after her marriage.  The courts annulled the marriage, ruling that “John Ruskin was incapable of consummating the same by reason of incurable impotency.” Understandably embarrassed, he offered to prove his virility (goodness knows how), but this was declined. We’ll never know whether it would have stood up in court (so to speak).

Just under a year later, in July 1854, Effie was married to Millais. Although the Ruskin business was behind her, she wasn’t allowed to forget it. Queen Victoria refused to receive her at court, which seems remarkably hypocritical given the monarch’s own love of sex. That, at least, was not a problem in Effie’s second marriage, and she spent much of it pregnant, producing eight surviving children. Having such a large family to provide for turned Millais from the avant-garde to more commercial ventures, a decision that has been unfairly blamed on Effie. She might have encouraged him to become a portrait painter, but how else would he earn a living? Mr and Mrs Millais were not prepared to endure the grinding poverty experienced by Ford Madox Brown, the couple craving the position in society that his talent deserved. Going from one extreme to the other was a shock to Effie and family life brought more challenges, not least Millais’s Dickensian obsession with his sister-in-law Sophy, whose determination to remain his aesthetic ideal contributed to an early death from anorexia. After the artist’s death in 1896, Effie was able to return to her family in Scotland, the only place where she had ever felt truly at home.

Effie shines out from these pages as a strong and intelligent woman who deserved to become recognised in her own right, rather than as the wife of an eminent man. We see sixty years of Victorian life through her eyes, and she is a lively and engaging correspondent. Thanks in part to fifteen bundles of letters lent to the Tate Archive, the biographer has provided an intimate portrait of this fascinating character and it is difficult not to become completely absorbed in her world. Part of Cooper’s considerable skill is in not allowing her heroine to become overshadowed by her husbands’ achievements, or to be seen as a necessary sacrifice to their art. Effie is presented unapologetically as an ordinary middle-class woman, albeit one who led an extraordinary life.

Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, Ruskin and Millais is available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: biography, books, reviews Tagged With: marriage, PRB

Mr Briggs’ Hat by Kate Colquhoun

July 31, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Mr Briggs Hat by Kate ColquhounThere is something pleasingly understated about a book called Mr Briggs’ Hat. This seemingly ordinary item of apparel became key to one of the most famous murder cases of the nineteenth century, inspiring terror among the commuters of the heaving metropolis.

On the evening of 9 July 1864, Thomas Briggs, a 69-year-old bank clerk, boarded a train at Fenchurch Street. It should have taken him to his home in Hackney, as it had done hundreds of times before. However, the train arrived without Mr Briggs, and all that remained of him in his blood-soaked compartment was his bag and stick, along with a crushed hat that wasn’t even his. Although the blood actually sloshed through to the next compartment, there were no witnesses to the crime – this was a classic locked-room murder. It only became apparent what had happened when Briggs’ battered body was found by the railway tracks, and without his gold watch or hat.

Unsurprisingly, such a dramatic crime attracted a media frenzy, and the police were under enormous pressure to find the culprit. Not only was this the first murder on a British train, the victim was also a gentleman. Furthermore, he’d been travelling in a first-class compartment, where decent folk ought to be safe.

Officers soon apprehended a young German tailor called Franz Müller, who was found to be in possession of the stolen items and also seemed likely to have the missing hat. He sailed to America a few days after the murder, thereby making him appear more guilty. Although this evidence seemed fairly conclusive, the case was frustratingly complicated, with Müller able to provide rational explanations for what appeared to be damning evidence. The press delighted in stirring up xenophobic feeling against the suspect, leaving him little hope of a fair trial.

This seemingly simple case contained more twists and turns than a Victorian potboiler and they are skilfully chronicled by Kate Colquhoun. The narrative is well paced, with just the right amount of historical context, and the atmosphere is created in such a way as to make it utterly absorbing. The reader is kept guessing throughout by the ever-shifting composite view of characters and events.

Apart from this fine book, the legacy of the Briggs’ murder was the introduction of communication cords on trains and also windows between compartments, amusingly called Muller lights. Also, it changed people’s perception of their own safety. As Colquhoun writes:

The fact that the attack occurred on a railway train emphasised a terrifying new reality: that technological cleverness had spawned progress and wealth, but at a cost. It suggested that the price to be paid for modernity was, even for the most privileged in society, vulnerability and death.

The curious case of Mr Briggs’ hat was a pivotal moment in the Victorian age, and its dramatic significance is captured perfectly in this book.

Mr Briggs’ Hat is available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: crime, murder, railways

Into the Frame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown by Angela Thirlwell

July 27, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Into the Frame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown by Angela ThirlwellFord Madox Brown (1821-1893) is perhaps most famous for being on the margins of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but was overshadowed by more dominant figures, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. Whereas works like ‘The Last of England’ form a legacy of his brilliance, the man behind the easel has remained elusive. Angela Thirlwell’s Into the Frame is a joint portrait of the four women who influenced Madox Brown: his two wives, Elisabeth and Emma, and the two women with whom he had very intense (but not necessarily sexual) relationships, Marie Spartali and Mathilde Blind.

Madox Brown’s ‘outsider’ status was due partly to his having been born in France, where he spent his formative years. Following the early deaths of his mother and sister, he became close to his first cousin, Elizabeth Bromley. They fell in love and married, leading a peripatetic life on the continent. Their son died after only a few days, but their daughter Lucy, born in 1843, was stronger and went on to become an artist. Although his daughter was spared, Elizabeth was not; she died of TB aged just 27.

Two years later, Emma Hill, an alluring young model, entered Madox Brown’s life. She overcame an underprivileged and illiterate background to become the second Mrs Madox Brown. Although determined to improve herself, she battled with a drink problem and was never able to overcome it. The marriage was tempestuous but endured, producing three children. They suffered poverty, with Madox Brown struggling to earn enough to maintain his family – a life that was more Desperate Remedies than Desperate Romantics. Emma was also her husband’s most significant model, and it is she who appears in ‘The Last of England’ – a painting that becomes mesmerising when read in the context of their marriage.

This marriage weathered the storms of Madox Brown’s obsession with other women. Marie Spartali, a well-educated and wealthy Anglo-Greek heiress was the antithesis of Emma, and inevitably there was tension when she became Madox Brown’s pupil. Although the great artist found himself utterly bewitched by his protégé, she instead fell in love with William Stillman, a handsome but worthless cad. I shared Thirlwell’s incredulity at how this beautiful and talented young woman could throw away the best years of her life on a man without any redeeming features. Standing an exceptional 6ft tall, Spartali was perhaps drawn to one of the few men taller than herself. They formed an imposing couple and were dubbed the ‘Lankies’ by William Michael Rossetti. The dynamics of this complex web are captured with skill – Madox Brown’s obsession for Spartali matched by hers for Stillman.

As if the household weren’t complicated enough, the Madox Browns were also joined by the German-Jewish writer Mathilde Blind (pronounced ‘Blint’), who had immigrated to England as a child after the revolutionary upheaval of 1848. Blind was an intellectual heavyweight and shared her host’s radical views and lack of religious belief. She was a free spirit, enjoying relationships with both men and women, but always avoiding long-term commitment. Her forthright views destroyed an early friendship with the novelist Rosa Nouchette Carey (with whom I suspect she was also romantically involved). The arrival of Blind in the story brings with it a superb evocation of the political turmoil of 1840s Europe and a deliciously acerbic portrait of Karl Marx.

Although Ford Madox Brown was not as flamboyant or exciting as some of his contemporaries, he emerges from this study as a complex and beguiling man. Thirlwell’s oblique approach of exploring him through the women in his life is both refreshing and accomplished. Madox Brown’s relationships with these four figures were complicated and turbulent, but he treated them all with kindness and loyalty. The historical context is impeccable, providing a succinct but satisfying sense of contemporary events. As an art specialist, Thirlwell is particularly captivating when describing Madox Brown’s work, leaving me with a desperate urge to view his paintings (now dispersed among various galleries).

Into the Frame is an enchanting blend of art history and biography, set against an expertly-drawn backdrop of nineteenth-century struggles – struggles that were also played out in Madox Brown’s own life.

Into the Frame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown by Angela Thirlwell is available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: biography, books, reviews Tagged With: art, PRB

A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton by Kate Colquhoun

July 23, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton by Kate ColquhounJoseph Paxton (1803-65) was a formidable auto-didact who embodied the Victorian idea of progress. From humble beginnings as the son of a poor farmer, Paxton landed the dream job of gardener to the Duke of Devonshire at the age of just 23. He remained there until the Duke’s death, 32 years later. Although horticulture was his great love, his talents were too diverse for him to remain tied to the land. A practical man who seemed to have a solution to any problem, “ask Paxton” became a national catchphrase. He went on to design mansions, sewage systems, and elaborate hothouses to ensure the wealthy never went without a pineapple.

Of course, Paxton is most famous for making the leap from designing ducal greenhouses to building the extraordinary glass structure that was (dismissively) dubbed the Crystal Palace. All large building projects inspire opprobrium, and there were many who doubted the wisdom of this shimmering edifice. However, given its enduring appeal as a national symbol over 150 years later, it was no white elephant. Paxton’s feat of engineering was quite breathtaking. The Crystal Palace was six times the size of St. Paul’s Cathedral, covering 18 acres, and it was visited by 6 million people eager to see the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the wonders it contained.

Many men would have had their heads turned by such extraordinary and high profile success, but Paxton kept his feet firmly on the ground. When away from home working on pioneering projects, he longed to be back at his beloved Chatsworth. Unusually for such a driven character, he was a devoted husband and father, and seemed to experience almost physical pain when separated from his family.

One of the most compelling aspects of this superb biography is the depiction of Paxton’s relationship with his employer. The unmarried Duke almost worshipped Paxton, lavishing him with gifts and doing everything in his power to keep him at Chatsworth. When in company, the Duke would talk of little other than his gardener’s achievements. Colquhoun avoids making any simplistic interpretation of the Duke’s motives, but the fact that he wrote in his diary “he is everything for me” conveys the poignancy of unrequited love.

Like most workaholics, Paxton had little time to smell his own roses, so his personality complemented perfectly that of the sophisticated Duke, whose vision spurred him on to ever greater achievements. It was a symbiotic relationship, and Paxton comes across as diminished after the Duke’s death in 1858. Needless to say, he wasn’t idle during his remaining years. He served as a Member of Parliament and conceived wide-reaching social projects. Thanks to successful financial speculation, Paxton enjoyed a comfortable life and the satisfaction of a life well lived.

This accomplished biography does justice to the great man and all that he achieved. With a polymath as a subject, Kate Colquhoun had a tough job in encompassing all the worlds that he spanned, but the material is handled with skill and assurance. I hope Colquhoun writes another biography, as she has a talent for evoking the spirit of an age and capturing a sense of the people who inhabited it.

A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton is available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: biography, books, reviews Tagged With: Great Exhibition

The Angel of the Revolution by George Chetwynd Griffith

July 18, 2012 By Catherine Pope

The Angel of the Revolution by George Chetwynd GriffithI must confess to a degree of scepticism on receipt of a proposal to publish The Angel of the Revolution, George Chetwynd Griffith’s 1893 tale of air warfare. Sci-fi generally resides in my Room 101 and has no place on the papal bookshelves. Imagine my surprise at finding myself completely gripped by a fantastical story in which an intrepid group of Socialists, Anarchists, and Nihilists defeat Capitalism with their superior knowledge of dirigibles (my new favourite word). Led by a crippled, brilliant Russian Jew and his daughter, Natasha, The Brotherhood of Freedom establishes a ‘pax aeronautica’ over the world, thanks to the expertise of scientist Richard Arnold.  Arnold falls in love with Natasha (the eponymous Angel), and Griffith builds a utopian vision of Socialism and romance.

The story moves at a rollicking pace and there’s never a dull moment. Griffith is also remarkably prescient in predicting future technology, including air travel, tidal power, and solar energy (showing far more imagination than Trollope in The Fixed Period). But it is his treatment of social responsibility that makes the novel particularly interesting in the current economic climate. Griffith imagines a world in which the wealth of the obscenely rich is sequestered, their property seized for the public good, and their businesses nationalised. Those with unearned incomes are forced to either pay punitive tax, or to undertake equivalent labour in the community. I’m not sure it would work as a blueprint, but it does show such debates are timeless.

Unsurprisingly, I know precisely nothing about aeronautics, but Steven McLean shows in the introduction and appendices how Griffith contributed to discourses on air travel. He clearly knew what he was talking about, as his son went on to invent the Rolls-Royce Avon jet engine. Griffith himself stuck with fiction, including A Honeymoon in Space, the story of a newly-married couple who use a spacecraft powered by anti-gravity to tour the solar system (as you do). That will be my next foray into science fiction. I’m not a convert, you understand, merely sci-fi curious.

The Angel of the Revolution by George Chetwynd Griffith is available in print and ebook editions.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: sci-fi

The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Jebb by Clare Mulley

May 20, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Woman Who Saved the Children by Clare MulleyIt is one of life’s delicious ironies that the founder of Save the Children, Eglantyne Jebb, referred to infants as “little wretches”. She went on to say that “the Dreadful Idea of closer acquaintance never entered my head”. Notwithstanding this aversion to the actual artefact, Jebb saved the lives of millions of children through her indefatigable efforts, raising awareness that the younger generation comprised an important national asset that should be protected and nurtured.

By rummaging through letters, diaries, journals and press-clippings, Clare Mulley presents a rich profile of her subject, deftly handling Jebb’s inherent contradictions and sometimes unlikeable characteristics. This is a very personal biography, with Mulley providing insights into the biographer’s relationship with their subject, and how this is prone to challenges and frustrations.

Eglantyne Jebb was born in 1876, one of five boisterous siblings in an intellectual and prosperous Shropshire household. The potentially deleterious effects of a Conservative father were counteracted by the presence of Aunt Bun, an ardent Liberal and advocate of women’s rights. Unsurprisingly, Mr Jebb was not keen on the idea of young Eglantyne going to university, believing it would turn her into an unmarriageable bluestocking. Supported by her Aunt, herself a Newnham graduate, Eglantyne got her way, anticipating the determination that was to characterise her later achievements.

As Mulley writes, “Only two years before Eglantyne arrived at Lady Margaret Hall women had to be chaperoned to lectures and could not join a university society, or cycle on Sundays. They could still not cross a college quad alone and had to be in by ten at night unless granted special leave.” In such a circumscribed environment, this indomitable and striking character caused a stir among the other female undergraduates. One described her as “dressed in green, with golden-red curly hair and a complexion seldom found outside a novel.”

After pushing the boundaries of acceptable behaviour for Oxford gels, Eglantyne left university with a second-class degree and trained to be a teacher, one of the few career opportunities open to women at the time. Her snobbery and lack of worldliness are exposed when she comments disdainfully that her fellow trainees “wear aprons and have accents”. Although disillusioned with her initial foray into pedagogy, Eglantyne persevered, taking a post at a school for working-class girls. This proximity to children gave her little pleasure, and the strain of unwilling labour caused a breakdown and a swift exit from her nascent profession.

A move to Cambridge provided refreshment – both a change of scene and a welcome release from the lower orders. Although old-fashioned in so many ways, early-twentieth-century Cambridge offered many opportunities for the intellectually curious, and Eglantyne soon involved herself with the Charities Organisation Society, going on to write an important social survey of her new city. As Mulley observes, “For Eglantyne, poverty was neither a result of natural law or providence, nor purely a government policy issue, but a collective social responsibility that could only be addressed through the promotion of active citizenship across all social classes and generations.” Jebb’s perspicacity on local issues became part of her much grander vision.

It was at the Charities Organisation Society that Jebb met Margaret Keynes, sister to the famous economist. Eglantyne found herself drawn to this “exceedingly pretty and winsome” young woman, who shared her passion for social issues. Their opposite personalities were complementary: Eglantyne confident, yet physically frail; Margaret nervous, but unflagging in her desire to serve her new mentor. Although it is clear from letters and journals that Margaret and Eglantyne enjoyed a physical relationship, they were living at a time when lesbianism was not recognised or acknowledged. Intense female friendships were common, many of which would now be interpreted as sexual. Mulley handles the issue with admirable sensitivity, avoiding a retrospective categorisation, but at the same time acknowledging the importance of their relationship. Margaret and Eglantyne discussed their “marriage” and the possibility of buying a house together. Their plans were fully supported by Eglantyne’s mother, who wanted her daughter to be happy.

Eglantyne was indeed happy, at least until Margaret forsook her for a professor of frog anatomy. Edging towards twenty-eight, Margaret realised that a conventional marriage would provide her with children, financial security and also social acceptability. Although Eglantyne was dignified in rejection, her pain was overwhelming, no doubt compounded by Margaret’s insensitivity in expecting her approval. While Margaret embraced her new and conventional life, Eglantyne was left lonely and grieving. She confided to her diary: “I miss Margaret more and more … I miss her and I miss her, however things happen and wherever I am. This great affection of mine seems to shatter me and yet I do not believe it is wrong to feel it.”

Characteristically, Eglantyne threw herself into work as a distraction from heartache, producing a report on the humanitarian crisis in the Balkans. Her experiences led her to conclude: “It is in war itself, not in its victims, that the barbarity lies.” The horror of conflict displaced Eglantyne’s patriotism, leaving her with a passionate antipathy towards all war. She was particularly moved by the consequences for the innocent, making the irrefragable statement, “Surely it is impossible for us, as normal human beings, to watch children starve to death without making an effort to save them.” That’s exactly what she set out to do.

While many would have agreed with Eglantyne’s sentiments, she actually acted on her beliefs, establishing Save the Children with her sister Dorothy Buxton in 1919. Although the initial aim was to alleviate starving children in the aftermath of the Allied Blockade, the charity’s scope became international, helping to save millions of young lives. By the end of the following year, Eglantyne had raised the equivalent of £8m, boosted by an endorsement from Pope Benedict XV (a rare, if not unique, example of papal intervention actually helping matters). Other prominent figures also lent support, including George Bernard Shaw, who contributed the laconic but poignant statement: “I have no enemies under the age of seven”.

Eglantyne’s achievements were remarkable, especially given her persistent ill health. She suffered from heart problems, depression and vacillating energy levels, often resulting in extreme exhaustion. Now recognised as symptoms of an overactive thyroid, there was little understanding of the condition at the time. Eglantyne wrote, “In idleness it seems impossible to be happy,” the benefits of rest entirely counteracted by the stress of being rendered inactive. These periods also gave her time to reflect on the loss of Margaret, and she struggled with the “wish to escape from the personal pain of living”.  Her sheer force of will kept Eglantyne going, and she often worked from her sickbed. Eventually, however, her body was worn down and she succumbed to a stroke at the age of just fifty-two.

Her time on earth was relatively short, but Eglantyne Jebb achieved a great deal with her allotted span, saving children, redefining child welfare and writing influential social policy, all in an era when women were excluded from political life. Her legacy is particularly impressive for someone who didn’t even like children. As Mulley notes, “Eglantyne chose the universal over the particular. Her focus was not a personal, embodied child, but an unknown, universal, symbolic child, that represented social potential.” While Save the Children is one of the world’s best-known charitable organisations, Eglantyne herself remains an obscure figure, and she has not received the recognition she deserves. Mind you, Princess Anne named one of her bull terriers Eglantyne, which is perhaps the epitome of a backhanded compliment.

Mulley makes a compelling case for Eglantyne Jebb’s resurrection as an important figure. Although impressed by her subject’s achievements, Mulley never recoils from presenting the less attractive qualities, such as her snobbishness and intellectual aloofness. Eglantyne’s complex and contradictory nature is presented in an engaging narrative, embodying a perfect balance between historical context, character, and readability. Jebb was serious about her work, but never took herself too seriously, and her sense of fun permeates a book punctuated with much sadness. This unlikely children’s champion has been given overdue acknowledgement by a talented, sympathetic and insightful biographer.

The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Jebb by Clare Mulley is available in paperback and Kindle editions. All royalties are donated to Save the Children, so you can read a wonderful book and also help a good cause at the same time.

 

Filed Under: biography, reviews Tagged With: Good Eggs

Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope (1864)

March 18, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Stephen King once rudely referred to the first Palliser novel as Can You Finish It? It’s certainly true that Trollope wasn’t known for his brevity, and this handsome new OUP edition of Can You Forgive Her? is 700 pages long. However, Trollope grapples with an ambitious range of political and social themes and, in so doing, presents a compelling and provocative narrative.

The central question raised is ‘What should a woman do with her life?’ and it is examined through expertly-drawn characters who all make very different choices. Alice Vavasor is a young woman with an independent fortune who has ended up engaged to a stuffed shirt by the name of John Grey. Although eminently respectable, Grey (as his name suggests) is interested mainly in propriety and is ill-suited to a wife who seems likely to prove a handful. Alice’s cousin and quondam lover George predicts: “He’d make an upper servant of her; very respectable, no doubt, but still only an upper servant.”

George Vavasor is the antithesis of John Grey: he lives for excitement, caring little for respectability. His financial speculations go disastrously wrong, he is disinherited by his grandfather, and he even assaults his loyal sister, Kate. George’s reckless behaviour prompted Alice to break their earlier engagement, but Kate is now determined that they should be reunited. Her motive is two-pronged: George needs Alice’s money in order to fulfil his parliamentary aspirations, and Kate wants a closer union with Alice.

As Dinah Birch discusses in her excellent introduction to this edition, Trollope hints at the idea of female marriage, with Kate effectively pursuing the courtship of Alice on her brother’s behalf. “Oh, heavens! how I envy him!”, she says when she imagines George caressing Alice. This unusual triangulation leads to a more equal marriage, with George referring to Alice as his “partner” and “a dear friend bearing the same name”. In marrying George, Alice is not obliged to change her name, thereby retaining her own identity, which otherwise would have been subsumed into that of her husband.

The plot concerning Alice has become rather overshadowed by the introduction elsewhere of two of Trollope’s most famous characters: Plantagenet and Glencora Palliser. We see Glencora as a wealthy young heiress, stultified by her arranged marriage with an austere and serious-minded husband. She is distracted by the dubious charms of the ne’er do well Burgo Fitzgerald and comes within a gnat’s whisker of breaking her wedding vows. The prospect of losing his wife to a bad ‘un rouses Palliser from his stupor and the planned elopement is foiled in a dramatic ballroom scene. Glencora “had been counselled that it was not fitting for her to love as she had thought to love, and she had resolved to give up her dream.” Essentially, she receives an early lesson in the sexual double standard. Whereas George Vavasor is able to maintain a mistress and visit prostitutes, a young woman must accept that her life is circumscribed.

Trollope’s answer to the question “what should a woman do with her life?” is “marry and have children”. There’s no other option, so they should simply stop mithering and get on with it. As Dinah Birch writes in the introduction, “In Trollope’s view, Alice’s suffering is rooted in her persistent indecision, not in the limited choices available to her.” Although she strives to resist her fate, Trollope is careful not to make her one of those pesky feminists: she was “not so far advanced as to think that women should be lawyers and doctors.” As such, her struggle is futile, as she gives no serious consideration to anything other than the status quo.

Although Trollope’s conclusion is, as ever, morally conservative, he does allow his heroines some feelings along the way. Female chastity is shown to be a matter of resistance, rather than an innate quality. He also shows through George the disastrous consequences of men being given too much liberty. His handling of relationship dynamics is incredible and his portrayal of Lady Glencora and Plantagenet Palliser’s marriage is genuinely moving, setting a keynote for the rest of the series of novels.

Yes, it’s a long book, but one in which the reader can become utterly absorbed, luxuriating in Trollope’s exquisitely-imagined world.

Filed Under: reviews Tagged With: Anthony Trollope, Palliser, The Trollope Challenge

Lady Worsley’s Whim by Hallie Rubenhold

January 25, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Lady Worsley's Whim by Hallie RubenholdThere’s not much that surprises me these days, but Lady Worsley’s Whim managed to repeatedly elevate the papal eyebrows. The story centres around an infamous crim-con trial that took place on 21 February 1782 between Sir Richard Worsley, Governor of the Isle of Wight, and George Bisset, an officer (but not a gentleman) and one-time friend of Worsley. Despite having encouraged a close relationship between Bisset and his wife, Worsley thought it outrageous when the pair ran off together, and claimed £20,000 in damages. Already a wealthy man, the astronomical sum was designed to reduce his enemy to penury.

Sir Richard’s willingness to assign a purely financial value to the loss of his wife was entirely in character. He was a decidedly cold fish who was far more interested in collecting artefacts and bolstering his social status. Impervious to the charms of young heiress Seymour Dorothy Fleming, he had eyes only for her £70,000 fortune (equivalent to around £66m today). Once she had become Lady Worsley and divested herself of both identity and assets, Sir Richard was no longer interested in her. Lady Worsley remained a virgin until three months after their marriage, when her husband reluctantly did his duty and sired an heir.

Bored witless with little to distract her, Lady Worsley made her own entertainment. On one occasion she and two friends went on a three-day rampage, culminating in setting fire to a room in an inn:

‘How do you think they quenched the flame their own fair selves had caused? They did not call water! Water!, it was more at hand …’ these three well-bred young ladies, who had been taught to dance, embroider and lisp sweetly in French, lifted their silk skirts ‘and fairly pissed it out …’

Even this distinctly unladylike behaviour was insufficient to attract her husband’s attention.

When Sir Richard met Bisset, he thought his prayers had been answered. Here was a dashing officer who fulfilled his homosocial needs and his wife’s sexual appetites. Bisset was invited to live with the couple in a bizarre ménage à trois, with Sir Richard acting as voyeur while the other two amused themselves. He even seemed nonplussed when his wife became pregnant with Bisset’s child. This phlegmatic husband made little attempt to disguise his complicity in his wife’s liaison – at one crucial point he allowed Bisset to stand on his shoulders so he could watch the naked Lady Worsley getting dressed after a swim. This was to become ‘the most regrettable day of his life’, as we shall see.

Bisset and Lady Worsley’s relationship blossomed into love and they decided it would be quite nice to enjoy one another without her husband peering at them. They crept off into the night on 19 November 1781, taking up residence in a London hotel. Sir Richard finally discovered some virility at this point. Adultery was one thing, but his wife had destroyed the sanctity of marriage and his friend had thumbed his nose at the fraternal bond. Humiliated by his cuckold’s horns, Sir Richard invoked the full force of husbandly privilege, denying his estranged wife both money and any of her personal effects. She had only the clothes she wore on the night of the elopement and was entirely reliant on her lover, despite having provided an impressive dowry. As a wife, she had no right to her other clothes and jewels, worth an astonishing £15 million in today’s money.

The subsequent court case didn’t reflect well on anyone. As a mere woman, Lady Worsley had no right to defend herself, and the only tactic left to her was to prove she wasn’t worth the £20,000 damages claimed by Sir Richard. A seemingly endless succession of young bucks took to the witness stand to testify to having satisfied Lady Worsley’s whims, thereby branding her a worthless trollope. The judge consequently awarded damages of just one shilling, also denouncing the wronged husband as a foolish pervert. The crux of the case was his encouraging Bisset to watch his naked wife, so it was very clear that he had brought about his own downfall.

Perhaps inevitably, Bisset soon tired of his notorious lover and found himself a respectable wife.  The redoubtable Lady Worsley ended up in revolutionary Paris, embarking upon a new life and many adventures. Fortunately, Sir Richard died young enough for her to reclaim some of her fortune and find happiness with a much younger husband. Lady Worsley’s tenacity is both astonishing and humbling. Although rendered impotent by the law, she refused to tolerate the machinations of her sadistic, calculating husband. At a time when the only thing wives possessed was their virtue, she was willing to sacrifice it in order to extricate herself from an invidious position.

Hallie Rubenhold has done her subject justice by allowing her story to be heard and also setting it carefully in its historical context, thereby emphasising the remarkable nature of Lady Worsley’s actions. Rubenhold’s narrative skill is as remarkable as her subject. I found it impossible to put the book down and my knuckles were white from gripping it so tightly through all the twists and turns. The historical and legal detail is skilfully interwoven with the story, without either dominating or slowing it down. An extraordinary book about an extraordinary woman.

Lady Worsley’s Whim is available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: biography, reviews Tagged With: divorce, kindle, marriage

The Somnambulist by Essie Fox

January 2, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Somnambulist by Essie FoxImagine an intoxicating narrative with more twists and turns than Downton Abbey (without the red flags), and flashes of M R James, Sarah Waters, and Wilkie Collins. That is what Essie Fox has achieved with her debut novel, The Somnambulist, a story that continues to haunt the reader long after the final page has been reached.

Phoebe Turner is a 17-year-old girl living in the East End of London with Maud, her Evangelical Christian mother. Maud has declared implacable war on sin, campaigning for theatres and bars to be closed and an end to all fun. She disapproves of her glamorous sister Cissy who sings on the stage at Wilton’s Music Hall, although Phoebe adores her. When Cissy dies of an overdose, Phoebe is distraught and finds herself trapped in a circumscribed and impoverished world. There is a welcome turn of events when the wealthy and mysterious Nathaniel Samuels offers her a position as companion to his wife. Leaving her old life behind, Phoebe travels to Dinwood Court, the Samuels’ labyrinthine Herefordshire mansion, described disarmingly as an “idyll of peace and perfection, an oasis, an Eden, a heaven on earth.” Lydia, her laudanum-addicted mistress, is a complete recluse with a tendency to sleepwalk and mutter about her troubled past. Phoebe is inexorably drawn into the family’s dark web of lies, gradually uncovering the truth about both them and herself.

Essie Fox creates an almost unbearable level of tension, and Phoebe’s terror is at times palpable as she embarks upon a long awakening. The plot seems to follow a well-trodden path, but suddenly veers off in an entirely different direction, with the author cleverly subverting classic sensation novel tricks.

As creator of the super Virtual Victorian blog, Essie’s eye for detail is extraordinary and accurate, with her scenes vividly drawn. Fin-de-siècle London is brought to life with an eerie glow, contrasting with the dazzling opening scenes set at Wilton’s. The descriptions of Dinwood Court are a delicious Gothic confection with spookiness lurking behind every door, like a malevolent advent calendar.

The sleepwalking theme suggested by the title is cleverly adumbrated throughout the novel, with a pervading sense of ghostliness and phantasmagoria. There are more literal allusions, too, with references to Millais’ painting The Somnambulist, which recently sold at auction for a surprisingly low £75K and was said to have been inspired by The Woman in White.

The Somnambulist is an exciting, intelligent and compelling novel, and I can’t wait for the next one. Glorious.

The Somnambulist is available in hardback and Kindle editions. There’s also a stunning website to accompany the book.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: ghost stories, neo-Victorian, Wilkie Collins

Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy Moore

January 1, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy MooreI must confess to having been initially sceptical at the title’s claim of “worst” husband. Having spent much of the last few years rummaging through historical divorce papers, I know there are many ghastly contenders for that dubious honour. Andrew Robinson Stoney was described by his own father as “the most wretched man I ever knew”, and he was to showcase his ghastliness on Mary Eleanor Bowes, the eighteenth century’s richest heiress (and great-great-great-grandmother of the late Queen Mother).

Mary was worth around £100m in today’s money, making her a considerable prize for an intrepid fortune seeker. Although of humble origins, Stoney contrived to fight a duel over Mary’s honour, feigning a fatal injury. In his supposedly final hours, the gallant hero rasped that his dying wish was to marry Mary. Advised by three medical men that the end was nigh, Mary consented, even though she was carrying the child of Stoney’s rival. Shortly after the wedding, Stoney effected a Lazarus-like recovery, and found the strength to regularly beat his wife within an inch of her life.

The violence was relentless, with Stoney regularly pinching, kicking or slapping Mary. He warned her not to tell anyone, forcing her to tell stories of walking into doors or falling down the stairs. When displeased with her appearance, he would hack off her hair with shears. As Moore writes: “Watching her every movement, Stoney exerted control over the clothes Mary wore, the visitors she received, the conversations she held, the food that she ate, the journeys she undertook and every aspect of her daily life from morning until night with a pathological eye for detail.”
Mary’s wealth was tied up in a trust, beyond the reach of her acquisitive brute of a husband. After plotting and scheming, he bullied a befuddled and beaten Mary into signing over her fortune, thereby gaining full dominion. With a full purse, Stoney became a man about town, taking full advantage of his elevated status, while Mary remained at home, repenting her haste at leisure. To mark their first wedding anniversary on New Year’s Day, Stoney chillingly informed Mary that his resolution was to make that year even more miserable than the last.

He was as good as his word, and Mary’s life became increasingly circumscribed. She had been a talented botanist, growing an impressive range of plants and a reputation as a pioneering horticulturist. Stoney deliberately released hares to destroy her flowers, finally selling her beloved gardens and greenhouses to fund his debauched lifestyle. Stoney delighted himself with developing new forms of psychological abuse, but this did not stop him from burning his wife’s face with a candle or stabbing her in the tongue with a pen nib. His cruelty knew no bounds. The servants were powerless to intervene, and many of the maids were repeatedly raped by their depraved master.

Some readers might be incredulous that Mary tolerated such behaviour and didn’t simply remove herself from the situation. There was nothing, however, to prevent Stoney from doing exactly as he pleased. In the eighteenth century, a husband exercised complete control over the household – wife and servants alike were his property. Once Mary had been coerced into signing over her inheritance, she was completely penniless, forced even to borrow underwear from her maid. When she did finally flee the marital home, Mary had no means of supporting herself and had to leave behind her beloved children (also the property of Stoney).

Moore describes the subsequent divorce 1786 case as: “A staggering triumph, one of only sixteen cases seeking divorce on grounds of both adultery and cruelty in that decade, the result sent a clear signal to abusive husbands and a message of hope to abused wives everywhere.” Stoney was not a man to accept defeat, and the divorce proved to be only the beginning of the end. The redoubtable Mary was to suffer abduction, further violence, and humiliation.

As the title suggests, Mary ultimately triumphs, although not without enduring unimaginable suffering. I was lost in admiration at her endurance and tenacity in the face of such torture. Her willingness to defy convention and publicly denounce her husband’s abuse resulted in three court rulings that influenced women’s rights campaigns in the nineteenth century. Progress was slow, with protection against violent husbands instituted in 1878 and financial autonomy for wives in 1882, nearly 100 years after Mary’s one-woman struggle.

It is surprising that Mary Bowes is little known outside the annals of marriage law. The man who tormented her has been immortalised as Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon, and his lack of financial acumen has given us the term “stoney broke”. Wendy Moore is to be applauded, therefore, for giving this heroic woman the recognition she deserves. The story is absolutely gripping and I found myself exhausted and slightly stunned when reaching its conclusion. The historical context is well-balanced and impeccably researched: everything is contextualised without losing any of the cracking pace. Stories don’t get much more sensational than this, but Mary’s suffering is handled with great sensitivity. Wendy Moore is undoubtedly one of the very best writers of narrative non-fiction. The harrowing subject matter means that Wedlock is not an easy read, but it’s the story of remarkable woman, brilliantly told.

Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy Moore is available in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: marriage, wife-beating

The English Marriage: Tales of Love, Money and Adultery by Maureen Waller

December 31, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The English Marriage by Maureen WallerFollowing his umpteenth divorce, Rod Stewart remarked that he wouldn’t get married again – he would simply find a (presumably blonde) woman he didn’t like very much and give her a house. Reading Maureen Waller’s The English Marriage, I can’t say I blame him. There is very little love to be found in these pages, rather an abundance of violence, infidelity, and fraud. Each chapter focuses on a particular marriage and the outrage it embodied, whether it be wife-sale (yes, Hardy wasn’t making it up), bigamy, or old-fashioned adultery. These stories are interspersed with enlightening extracts from conduct manuals. My favourite of these is clergyman William Gouge’s Domesticall Duties (1622), which decrees that a married woman must maintain “an inward, wife-like fear”.

This quote provoked much snorting from my own spouse, but it is easy to forget that no sense of irony was meant at the time. Until 1882, a married woman had no separate legal existence and all that she owned belonged to her husband. Before 1870, she didn’t even have a right to her own earnings. It was a man’s duty to support his family, a responsibility for which he was rewarded with the power to chastise them in any way he saw fit.

Perhaps the clearest illustration of the inequitable position of women in the mid-Victorian period is that of Susannah Palmer. Her husband repeatedly used her as a punchbag, regularly blackening her eyes and knocking out her teeth. After years of suffering such relentless brutality, she absconded with the children and managed to support them single-handedly. Once she was settled, her husband tracked them down, seizing and selling all the possessions she had worked hard to acquire. Not content with parasitism, he attacked her while she was preparing her children’s supper. While he was clouting her around the head, she inflicted a slight cut on his hand. Outraged at this insubordination, he immediately summoned her for “cutting and wounding” him and she was sent to Newgate prison (where she expressed perfect contentment, being at a safe distance from her husband’s fists).

The great libertarian J S Mill lamented the fact that theft was punished more severely than wife-beating. But, as Waller glumly acknowledges: “it all came down to property in the end. A man mistreated his wife because he believed she was his possession to do what he liked with.” The passing of the Matrimonial Causes (Divorce) Act of 1857 didn’t make it much easier for women to extricate themselves from a violent husband (he would also have to commit adultery), but the establishment of the Divorce Court did expose abusive marriages to public scrutiny, exploding the myth that wife-beating was confined to the hoi polloi. Queen Victoria complained that it was no longer safe for a family to read the newspaper at the breakfast table, such was the lurid nature of many reports.
Given this impressive book spans more than 500 years, the reader occasionally craves more detail on a particular topic. However, Waller achieves a magisterial sweep through the history of marriage, deftly illustrating its landmarks with seminal cases and the often heart-breaking stories of those who laboured under the considerable weight of an indissoluble union. Waller handles her material with great sensitivity, never forgetting the pain that underlies the sensational headlines. Overall, she argues, access to divorce is vital if the institution of marriage is to survive.
This roll-call of unhappiness notwithstanding, lovers are not shunning matrimony. Despite his earlier cynicism, Rod Stewart is now married for the third time. As Waller concludes: “Love triumphs and hope springs eternal.”

The English Marriage: Tales of Love, Money and Adultery by Maureen Waller is available in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: marriage, Married Women's Property Act, Matrimonial Causes Act, wife-beating

Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy by Helen Rappaport

December 14, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Magnificent Obsession by Helen RappaportOne hundred and fifty years ago today, Queen Victoria and her subjects were plunged into mourning following the untimely demise of the Prince Consort. Albert’s death threw an enormous wet blanket over the social season, with the cancellation of balls, concerts, and soirees. For appearances’ sake, Charles Dickens was obliged to postpone a lucrative series of public readings, which must have really smarted.

Those of more modest means that the Inimitable Boz wondered how on earth they would afford to put their families in mourning. Manufacturers, meanwhile, rubbed their hands with glee, greedily anticipating a boost to their profits as the trade in commemorative items and dark-coloured clothing boomed. It’s an ill wind.

Although normal life was soon resumed for the nation, Victoria’s life had stopped on 14 December 1861. As Helen Rappaport notes: “Like Dickens’s Miss Havisham, she had no desire to move forward but only to remain in stasis, locked into that terrible moment of loss, in perpetuity.” The Prologue describes exactly what the Queen had lost: a blissfully happy marriage (at least from her point of view) and the stability of an intelligent, supportive husband. With arguably the most demanding job in the country, and nine children, Victoria relied on her husband to take care of domestic affairs: “Quite simply, he was all in all to her: surrogate father, husband, best friend, wise counsel, amanuensis and teacher — King in all but name.”

The description of the family’s last Christmas together is both beautiful and moving, brought to life by Rappaport’s sumptuous prose.

The chandeliers had to be taken down specially to accommodate the larger ornamental trees, which were securely suspended from the ceiling, their bases resting on the table. The ten rows of symmetrical branches of these trees were decorated with edible fancies: sweetmeats, little cakes, fancy French bonbons, gilt walnuts — and gingerbreads whose delicious aroma filled the air — the effect completed with coloured ribbons and wax tapers and a frosting of artificial snow and icicles. At each tree-top stood a Christmas angel of Nuremberg glass, its outstretched wings holding a wreath in each hand.

This poignant event is contrasted with Christmas 1878, where the still-grieving Victoria is contending with the death of her daughter, Princess Alice, who also passed away on 14th December.

As Rappaport shows, Queen Victoria formed an addiction to mourning and, more specifically, to the sympathy it allowed her to demand from family and servants. Whereas most widows would have thrown off their weeds after a couple of years, Victoria maintained hers for nearly two decades, refusing to perform public duties she thought inappropriate to a bereaved woman. It is this image of the grim-faced, black-clad matriarch that has endured, rather than the lively, playful young queen of her early reign.

It suits most historians to claim that Victoria remained the reclusive Widow of Windsor for the rest of her days, thereby overlooking her considerable industry during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Rappaport, conversely, describes how Victoria finally emerged from the shadow of death and found the courage to go on, realising at last that she possessed the skills necessary to be a great monarch: “her natural intelligence, the force of her indomitable personality and her great powers of endurance.”

Rappaport’s frustration with Queen Victoria is palpable at certain points, which is unsurprising given the monarch’s breathtaking solipsism and self-indulgence. No reader can fail to feel anger at her refusal to believe that Albert was ill, simply because it was inconvenient to her and distracted attention from her own preoccupations.

This account is scholarly, yet compelling and highly readable. The story is placed in unobtrusive, meticulous historical context, and the archival research is impeccable. Although much has been written about Victoria’s long reign, it has seldom reached this superlative standard. Rarely have I encountered a book that has satisfied in so many different respects.

Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy  by Helen Rappaport. Also available in a Kindle edition. Victorian Secrets publishes Helen Rappaport’s No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: Prince Albert, Queen Victoria

A Mummer’s Wife by George Moore

June 11, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Cover of A Mummer's Wife by George MooreA Mummer’s Wife (1885) was my first introduction to George Moore, and I found myself captivated by this intriguing literary figure, who attracted praise and censure in equal measure.  W B Yeats found the novel so shocking that he forbade his sister to read it, and the conservative press was almost unanimous in condemning its “coarseness”.

Moore’s novel tells the story of Kate Ede, a bored Midlands housewife unhappily married to an asthmatic draper.  When Dick Lennox, a handsome travelling actor, comes to lodge with her family, Kate succumbs to temptation, with disastrous consequences.  Moore describes in almost unbearable detail Kate’s sense of claustrophobia, disillusionment,  and subsequent ignominious descent into alcoholism.  124 years after it was first published, A Mummer’s Wife retains its ability to shock.

A Mummer’s Wife is a significant novel both in terms of its sensational content and within the context of literary censorship.  Mudie’s decision to ban the novel from his famous circulating library prompted a virulent attack by Moore in his pamphlet Literature at Nurse (included as an appendix to this edition). Moore defends the sexual content of his novel, comparing it with some of the sensation fiction approved by Mudie, and arguing that works by Ouida and Florence Marryat were far racier.

The novel begins with Kate’s husband Ralph suffering a severe asthma attack.  Although she performs her wifely duty in looking after him, Kate endures endless provocation from her puritanical mother-in-law.  Kate’s circumscribed existence in the manufacturing town of Hanley is vividly portrayed and there is a palpable sense of ennui.
The arrival of Dick Lennox and his theatre company suddenly opens Kate’s eyes to a world beyond her own sphere of existence, and it is the work of a moment for the handsome actor to seduce the lonely draper’s wife.  Freed from the restrictions of her former life, Kate also discovers a talent for acting and reinvents herself as an actress.  Being a mummer’s wife, however, is not quite what she expected, and Kate soon becomes disillusioned with the travelling life.  She takes to drink, and a tantalising glimpse of her former security sends her into an inexorable decline.

A Mummer’s Wife is a fictional assault on romantic fiction, showing all too clearly the dangers of extra-marital liaisons, and highlighting the deleterious effects of novels such as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary on impressionable female minds.  Although highly critical of women novelists in Literature at Nurse, Moore goes much further with his anti-heroine than Florence Marryat or Rhoda Broughton would have ever dared.  Through Kate, Moore relentlessly exposes and upholds the sexual double standard, thus making the novel an often uncomfortable read.  In so doing, however, he shows with exquisitely-drawn realism, that the consequences of adultery were far more devastating for women.  A Mummer’s Wife is shocking and depressing, but ultimately a novel of extraordinary power.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: Florence Marryat, George Moore, naturalism, Ouida

Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks

February 3, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks by Pamela PilbeamA paradoxical disadvantage of the Kindle’s long battery life is that I often forget to charge it before train journeys and find myself facing a blank screen. The last such episode proved felicitous, as it prompted me to buy Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks from the wonderful £2 bookshop opposite the British Library. Although I visited Madame Tussaud’s several times as a tiny geek, I hadn’t given it much thought since, but Pamela Pilbeam’s superb study has awakened my interest. The book is part biography of Tussaud herself, and part cultural history of waxworks.

Modern waxworks originated in the 1770s with two Parisian exhibitions managed by Phillipe Curtius. He trained young Marie Grosholz (later Tussaud), possibly his illegitimate daughter, and she inherited the business after his death. Although she was later to become an astonishingly successful businesswoman, Marie’s early career was spent modelling the victims of the Terror in Revolutionary France. In her memoirs she claimed to have sat with bloody heads on her knees, taking impressions of their (presumably contorted) features. For subjects who had the good fortune to still be intact, Marie covered their faces with a plaster of Paris mask, inserting straws or quills into their nostrils to allow them to breathe. In one case, Marie forgot the straws and nearly ended up with another corpse. Pilbeam observes that waxworks became a way of normalising the violence of the 1790s, as people became accustomed to bloody images. Marie later maintained that the painter David used her wax model of Marat for his famous bath-tub murder scene.

Once the worst of the Terror was over, Marie married François Tussaud, a civil engineer eight years her junior, and soon had three children. Unfortunately, Tussaud seemed mainly interested in spending her money and Marie was obliged to protect her property from him. An invitation to tour Britain provided her with an opportunity to extricate herself from an exploitative marriage.

Marie marketed herself in Britain as someone au fait with senior politicians and French royalty, and this gave her traveling show a cachet denied to fairground exhibits. The British were intrigued by this exotic woman and flocked to see her curious waxworks. As her popularity grew, French marriage law changed and wives lost all control over their property and earnings, with a working woman’s wages paid to her husband. Marie simply refused to send the proceeds of her industry to François, taking advantage of his inertia. She was wise to do so, as he was rapidly demolishing the business she had left behind in Paris.

Marie’s tireless energy and appetite for self-promotion quickly raised her profile to the extent that she was invited to model the royal family in 1808. Her alacrity and attention to detail in chronicling current events ensured returning audiences. Visitors were encouraged to touch the waxworks, giving them the opportunity to feel part of history and an affinity with figures they could never hope to meet in real life. Marie was always perched in a cubicle, taking the money and keeping a careful eye on everything. The exhibition was aimed squarely at the middle and upper classes, the cost and opening hours designed to deter riff-raff.

The tour continued for an exhausting 33 years, initially with a young family in tow. In 1835, at the age of 74, Marie finally found a permanent base for her models: the Baker Street Bazaar in London. She got herself established just in time to design an intricate representation of Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1837, complete with papier maché of the interior of Westminster Abbey. Queen Victoria’s wedding two years later provided another spectacle, with Marie commissioning an exact copy of the silk bridal gown. Tussaud’s ‘Adjoining Room’ was used for rather less celebratory events, and was dubbed the “Chamber of Horrors” by Punch in 1846. Marie would often purchase the entire contents of murder scenes, and some villains due to be executed would donate clothing for their waxy selves. As Judith Flanders has recently shown in The Invention of Murder, there was endless demand for vicarious sensation in an era when homicide was relatively rare.

As famous as her exhibits, Punch declared Marie “one of the national ornaments of the feminine species” and Dickens immortalised her as Mrs Jarley in The Old Curiosity Shop. The Dickensian portrait, although good publicity, wasn’t entirely flattering, and Marie also attracted considerable censure for her lavish displays and glorification of death at a time when Irish peasants were dying in their thousands. Business remained brisk, however, and Marie was in a position to decline a large offer from the fairground entrepreneur Barnum. François also started greedily eyeing the profits, so Marie transferred the business to her sons and out of the grasp of her importunate husband.

Marie died in 1850, in her 90th year and working almost until the end. Such had been her success that it was rumoured she was buried wearing jewels worth £50K. Two robbers broke into her coffin but were foiled when they accidentally pulled a bell rope. Oops. The business that bore her name continued virtually unchanged in the first few decades following her death. 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, saw nearly 1 million visitors, and Madam Tussaud’s was the most successful tourist destination in the country. In 1883, the exhibition moved to its current home on Marylebone Road, and the building was rumoured to have cost £80,000 (tens of millions in today’s money). Subsequent financial problems meant that the family sold the business for £173,000 in 1889, although many of them remained on the payroll. The basic premise of the show remained intact: recreating current and historical events and appealing to the public’s desire to get up close and personal with famous people without the risk of getting a slap. The Chamber of Horrors remained gruesome, the Tussauds even purchasing the sweet a baby was sucking when it was brutally murdered. Yes, quite. After changing hands, Tussaud’s did start trying to broaden its appeal across class boundaries, including models of political activists and radical politicians. In the new century, they displayed four of the suffragette leaders and placed them facing the Asquith government. Annie Kenney protested that the ministers might melt under their combined glare.

Tussaud’s continues to be both popular and topical, although these days I hardly recognise any of the latest additions. Pilbeam carefully documents the laborious work involved in creating a modern waxwork: two days to make the eyes, with silk threads used for the veins; 35 hours to colour the head (they must have saved considerable time with David Cameron); and 140 hours to construct a head of hair, each hair being sewn in separately. Such a wealth of detail is what makes this book so enjoyable and compelling. Pilbeam has carried out extensive research and presented it in a scholarly, yet accessible, way. I can’t say it has made me want to visit Madame Tussaud’s again, but it has given me an appreciation for the waxworks, and enormous respect for the extraordinary woman who created them.

Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks by Pamela Pilbeam

Filed Under: books, history, reviews Tagged With: history, murder

The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders

January 24, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Invention of Murder by Judith FlandersFeeling bereft after finishing Barchester Towers, I was saved from despair by the timely arrival of the postman clutching a copy of Judith Flanders’ The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime. Although squeamish by nature, I am intrigued by the Victorian fascination with murder and how it was represented through newsprint and popular culture, particularly sensation fiction. Flanders achieves a panoramic sweep through journalism, novels, broadsides, ballads, and theatre, engaging with both well-known and relatively obscure sources, and in the process unearthing a few hitherto unknown facts or connections.

The Victorian period was both metaphorically and literally dark. As Flanders observes, the lack of street-lighting for much of the nineteenth century meant that many neighbourhoods were plunged into complete darkness at night, thereby creating the perfect environment for those with murderous intent. Although fear was widespread, murder had become reassuringly rare, allowing people to indulge in the thrill of the crime without risk of being faced with its gruesome reality. The proliferation of newsprint fed this appetite for vicarious terror, with even the Times indulging in melodrama and in one case offering its readers the opportunity to buy the court model of a murder reconstruction. Such three-dimensional representations abounded – after the infamous Red Barn murder of 1827, Staffordshire pottery figures were produced of the perpetrator, Corder, and the victim, Maria Marten. The high cost of such items showed that the rich were just as obsessed with murder as the poor. Those unable to afford expensive knick-knacks could instead watch a dramatisation of the case. An early 1860s performance even featured the Bow Street runner who apprehended Corder recreating his arrest live on stage.

Endless press coverage provided rich fodder for sensation novelists, whose recycling of cases was no less exploitative than that of the potters and impresarios. Flanders surveys an impressively wide range of fiction, from the household name of Wilkie Collins to forgotten writers such as Matilda Charlotte Hostoun, who fictionalised the Road Hill House murder in Such Things Are, and Caroline Clive, who in Paul Ferroll created an unforgettably sinister villain.  Using archival material, she shows how real-life cases inspired many plots, with the fictional portrayal sometimes replacing reality in the public imagination. Flanders rightly concludes that quality varied, with Mary Elizabeth Braddon ranging from the zenith of Lady Audley’s Secret to the nadir of One Life, One Love:

… a story of the Paris Commune, double-identity, heroines regularly going mad and a plot so confusing that there is no real resolution, because I strongly suspect, the author could not quite work out what had happened, and understandably did not want to read it over again.

Of course, theatrical and literary representations of murder are several steps removed from grim corporeality. However, public executions of murderers were also popular entertainment, and nearly 30,000 people filed past the hanged body of the Resurrectionist Burke. A wallet was subsequently made from his scalp, and those with a taste for the truly morbid can view it in Edinburgh’s History of Surgery Museum. Such spectacles were big business, with traders plying a roaring trade in broadsides, grisly souvenirs and themed comestibles. Crowds eagerly watching the hanging of cabinet-maker James Greenacre, who murdered and dismembered his lover, were able to sustain themselves with Greenacre tarts (ingredients, fortunately, unknown).

Although Flanders provides full descriptions of many notable murders, her treatment is never gratuitous and she avoids potentially stomach-churning details. Victims remain human and are afforded respect; their killers are never glorified. Flanders’ dry wit also introduces much-needed levity into what could otherwise be a succession of bleak episodes. Other reviewers have criticised the book’s lack of cohesion or argument, but for me, this is its strength. Flanders synthesises a wealth of material, and there is no attempt to formulate the reader’s response or to draw simplistic parallels with twenty-first-century discourses on murder. The Invention of Murder is scholarly, engaging and comprehensive, allowing the reader to experience the multifaceted Victorian representation of murder from the safety of their armchair.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: Caroline Clive, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Matilda Houstoun, murder, Paul Ferrol, sensation fiction, Wilkie Collins

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

January 22, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Barchester Towers by Anthony TrollopeAlthough readers often struggle with The Warden, their efforts are amply rewarded by Barchester Towers (1857), the next novel in the Barset Chronicles. The story begins with the death of the Bishop, followed by a great deal of manoeuvering amongst those who seek to fill the much-coveted position. The triumphant candidate is Thomas Proudie, although it is his wife who wears the cassock in their household. Mrs Proudie – the “Medea of Barchester” – is perhaps Trollope’s most famous character and one of his finest comic creations. The plot mainly concerns her battles with the ambitious and oleaginous Obadiah Slope, who is determined to bend the Bishop to his will. The confrontations between Mrs Proudie and Slope are brilliantly drawn and sublimely funny. Bishop Proudie himself is a study in inertia and simply defers to whichever of the two rivals happens to be in the ascendant.

Not content with seeking political advantage, Slope also resolves to secure for himself an advantageous marriage, having no mean opinion of his appeal to the opposite sex. He has his evil eye on Eleanor Bold, the recently widowed and wealthy daughter of Septimus Hardy, but is distracted by the specious charms of Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni. Although permanently crippled by her estranged husband, Madeline proves irresistible to the men of Barchester, much to the disgust of their womenfolk, and uses her power to deadly and comic effect. Slope is no match for her, or indeed for any of the other formidable women he attempts to conquer. It takes a hard slap in the face from Eleanor to convince him that his attentions are unwelcome.

Eleanor Bold is one of Trollope’s strongest female characters. Independently wealthy, she is “fair game to be hunted down by hungry gentlemen”, but bats them away vigorously, refusing to accept that she should be grateful for proposals from importunate suitors. Eleanor shows dignity, courage, and spirit beyond that permitted to many Victorian heroines. It is unfortunate, therefore, that Trollope ultimately reduces her to wifely submission when she finally does remarry:

She has found the strong shield that should guard her from all wrongs, the trusty pilot that should henceforward guide her through the shoals and rocks. She would give up the heavy burden of her independence, and once more assume the position of a woman and the duties of a trusting and loving wife.

Possibly Trollope lost his nerve and decided that leaving Eleanor independent and happy at the novel’s conclusion would create an alarming precedent.

His portrayal of Madeline remains radical, however. There are relatively few clear depictions of marital violence in nineteenth-century fiction, but Trollope makes little attempt to obfuscate Madeline’s sufferings:

She had fallen, she said, in ascending a ruin, and had fatally injured the sinews of her knee; so fatally that when she stood, she lost eight inches of her accustomed height; so fatally that when she essayed to move, she could only drag herself painfully along, with protruded hip and extended foot, in a manner less graceful than that of a hunchback. She had consequently made up her mind, once and forever, than she would never stand and never attempt to move herself. Stories were not slow to follow her, averring that she had been cruelly ill-used by Neroni, and that to his violence had she owed her accident.

Trollope’s handling of such a harrowing issue could easily weigh down the entire narrative, but he undercuts the tragedy with the ludicrous reactions of the other female characters to this exotic creature:

“But you say she has only got one leg!”
“She is as full of mischief as tho’ she had ten. Look at her eyes, Lady De Courcy. Did you ever see such eyes in a decent woman’s head?”

Some of the humour elsewhere is perhaps unintentional, the following innuendo-laden scene a good case in point:

Here to her great delight she found Harry Greenacre ready mounted, with his pole in his hand …
“Shall I begin, ma’am?” said Harry, fingering his long staff in a rather awkward way.”

Maybe I’m just being smutty, but Trollope is not averse to the occasional double entendre in his other fiction.
Barchester Towers manages to be entertaining, incisive and provocative, and is representative of Trollope’s talents and range. It lacks a strong narrative arc, but with such superb characters and scenes, it is hardly necessary. In his Autobiography, Trollope wrote: “In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great delight.” His delight is evident on every page.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: Anthony Trollope, Barset Chronicles, marital violence, Trollope Challenge

The Bazalgettes by E M Delafield

January 9, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Published anonymously in 1935, The Bazalgettes is a spoof Victorian novel by E M Delafield, best known for her highly entertaining Diary of  Provincial Lady series.  The story is set in the 1870s and centres on young Margaret Mardon, who is so desperate to escape her unhappy family home that she determines to accept the first marriage proposal offered.  A suitor appears in the form of 64-year-old widower Sir Charles Bazalgette, who essentially wants a mother for his unruly brood of five children.  Margaret accepts his proposal with alacrity, becoming “the third of her husband’s experiments in wedded bliss”.

Although Sir Charles is aloof and completely uninterested in his young wife, Margaret does her best to be a good mother and resigns herself to the disappointment of married life.  All is well until she discovers the existence of another stepson, Charlie, who is a few years older than herself and the son of Sir Charles’ mysterious first wife.  When Charlie pays a visit, Margaret encounters “six-foot-three of muscular good looks” and falls head over heels in love with him.  Her feelings are entirely reciprocated, thus placing the lovers in a difficult position.  Margaret realises that an expedient marriage has left her thoroughly miserable, and she loses interest in everything – at least until, in true Victorian sensation style,  she is rescued by a twist of fate.

Meanwhile, her sister Julia, equally desperate to escape the family home,  has fallen for the dubious charms of poet and aesthete Theodore Blanden, who is surely inspired by Bunthorne in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience.  He writes verse in the style of Chaucer and woos her with his latest work, ‘Blyth runs the Blud in Springe’:

Blyth runs the Blud in Springe, my Swete,
Nu hosen alle men wear
Yonge maidens pluck the nettyl-leves
And twyne about their hayre,
Then shippity, then hoppity, then sing ye springe with me!

The novel abounds with such comic creations and Delafield’s characteristic acerbic wit.  The arch, lighthearted style is reminiscent of Rhoda Broughton, as is the plot device of contrasting the fortunes of two sisters, and causing excitement by the sudden introduction of beefcake.  Although delightfully entertaining, it doesn’t succeed as a convincing Victorian novel.  Nineteenth-century attitudes are rather bolted on to the plot, and many of the characters simply enjoy far too much latitude, given their societal position.  Also, the dénouement (which I shan’t spoil) is utterly unconvincing to anyone familiar with Victorian sensibilities.  Notwithstanding my customary pickiness, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and one of the earliest examples of neo-Victorian fiction.

E M Delafield’s novel The War-Workers is available through our Twentieth-Century Vox imprint.

Filed Under: reviews Tagged With: 20th century, neo-Victorian

The Fixed Period by Anthony Trollope

January 7, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Fixed Period by Anthony TrollopeThe futuristic utopia depicted in The Fixed Period (1882) is a radical and unexpected departure for Anthony Trollope.  Imagine Thomas Pynchon writing a chick lit novel, or Maeve Binchy turning her hand to slash fiction.  It’s a radical departure for me, too, as essentially I’ve been tricked into reading science fiction.  The story is set in 1980 in the fictional republic of Britannula, created when a group of ex-pats occupy the South Island of New Zealand and claim independence from Great Britain.  The 25,000-strong community is led by President John Neverbend, who almost bursts with his own self-importance and civic pride.

The tiny nation is initially peaceful and well-ordered, serving as a model democracy.  However, disharmony prevails when President Neverbend introduces his pet theory of the Fixed Period.  Concerned that people should not be allowed to outlive their usefulness, he introduces a programme of mandatory euthanasia for anyone reaching the age of 67 and a half.  His fellow legislators initially agree with the plan, although with an attendant degree of unease.  The trouble comes when the first man to be “deposited”, Gabriel Caswaller, mounts a spirited defence, and his popularity in the community means that he is also able to rouse popular support.  Neverbend is appalled that his carefully-planned scheme could fall at the first hurdle, and is completely intransigent.  His difficulties are compounded by the fact that is own son has fallen in love with Caswaller’s daughter.  Nevertheless, he perseveres with his extraordinary policy and is stopped only by a dramatic deus ex machina.

The Fixed Period is darkly comedic and one of Trollope’s most entertaining novels.  He clearly enjoyed himself enormously coming up with inventions for the 1980s and imagining what life would be like.  Although he doesn’t quite predict the ZX81 or Bananarama, he does suggest mobile telephony and a form of podcasting.  The Britain from which Britannula has seceded is essentially the same, however, with a strong hereditary principle in politics and Gladstone’s great-grandson as Prime Minister.  The character of President Neverbend is a fine creation, as is his wife, Sarah, who pricks his pomposity with Mrs Caudle-style lectures.

Contemporary reviewers weren’t quite sure what to make of The Fixed Period, and the Times described it as “essentially ghastly”.  It’s difficult to know whether Trollope seriously supported the idea of euthanasia, voluntary or otherwise.  In a curious twist of fate, however, he died not long after the novel was published, at the age of 67 and a half.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: Anthony Trollope, sci-fi, Trollope Challenge

Love Well the Hour: The Life of Lady Colin Campbell by Anne Jordan

December 20, 2010 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Love Well The Hour: The Life of Lady Colin Campbell by Anne JordanLast year I reviewed Victorian Sex Goddess: Lady Colin Campbell and the Sensational Divorce Case of 1886. My only criticism was that the book focused very much on the court case, and there was little to satisfy the curious mind as to Gertrude Campbell’s subsequent career.  Fortunately, Anne Jordan has just published Love Well the Hour: The Life of Lady Colin Campbell, thereby giving this redoubtable woman more sustained consideration.

Quite apart from robustly defending herself against a syphilitic and irascible husband, Gertrude Campbell made a stand for wronged wives everywhere.  Whilst she wasn’t a feminist in the modern sense of the word, Gertrude successfully challenged the idea that a woman separated from her husband should retire from public life and lead a nun-like existence.  Rather than pursue the alimony to which she was entitled, she forged a successful career as a writer and remained truly independent for the rest of her life.  She was a prolific journalist, mainly for the Saturday Review, also writing a novel and a book on fishing.  Her pioneering enthusiasm for sports was cruelly curtailed by the onset of rheumatoid arthritis.

Gertrude’s life story is fascinating in itself (see previous post for a summary), but this biography goes much further in revealing a wealth of information on the position of women in late-Victorian society, thereby illuminating the reasons why Gertrude was so remarkable in her willingness to defy convention.

Anne Jordan’s biography is well researched, and written in a clear, engaging style.  She conveys the complexity of this tenacious and intelligent woman who is so often defined only by her part in a notorious divorce trial.

Fellow Kindlers can download the book for just under a fiver, which is an absolute bargain.

Love Well The Hour: The Life of Lady Colin Campbell by Anne Jordan

Filed Under: reviews Tagged With: biography, divorce

Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World by Stephanie J. Snow

December 12, 2010 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Blessed Days of Anaesthesia by Stephanie J. SnowI hadn’t given much thought to anaesthesia until I read a biography of the writer Fanny Burney, who in 1811 underwent a mastectomy while fully conscious.  Extraordinarily she survived, living until the ripe old age of 87.  Burney’s is one of the many stories told by Stephanie Snow in Blessed Days of Anaesthesia, in which she charts the discovery and development of anaesthesia.

The story begins in 1844 with Horace Wells, an American dentist who discovered that nitrous oxide (laughing gas) could eliminate pain during dental surgery.  Unfortunately, his major public demonstration went wrong, leaving his patient squeaking and Wells’ reputation in tatters.  The ignominy was too much for him and he later committed suicide.

It was left to others to exploit and capitalise on this exciting new possibility.  Another American dentist, William Thomas Green Morton, successfully established ether as the anaesthetic of choice, and there was an unseemly struggle amongst his peers to patent the procedure and therefore maximise its earning potential.  Meanwhile, it was the physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes who came up with the term “anaesthesia” to describe the remarkable effect of ether on the body.

This groundbreaking discovery soon crossed the Atlantic, although the initial reaction was mixed.  It was John Snow, more famous for his work in identifying the causes of cholera, who seized upon the possibilities of ether, employing it in his surgical work and meticulously recording the results.  He soon developed an inhaler to replace the rather low-tech hanky method.  The trick was to control the inhalation of the ether so that the body would be anaesthetised without impairing any core functions.

Although some doctors were not convinced by this new discovery, others quickly grasped its potential.  An Edinburgh physician, Dr James Mathews, successfully experimented with chloroform, which rapidly overtook ether as news of its benefits spread.  Not all patients responded well to the new drug and there were tragic casualties along the way.  Mind you, it must be said that nineteenth-century surgery was a risky business in any case.   John Snow, however, suffered only one chloroform fatality out of more than 4,500 procedures.

Patrick Brontë was one of the early supporters of anaesthesia.  Having undergone painful cataract surgery in 1847, he could well imagine that the elimination of pain would be a great boon to humanity.  His daughter Charlotte’s immediate response to ether was that she would have her front teeth “extracted and rearranged” (anyone else for nineteenth-century orthodontics?)  Others were more distrustful of anaesthesia, believing pain to be an important bodily response and necessary to the preservation of life force.  Needless to say, it was mainly women who were expected to suffer.  An obvious application of the new wonder drug would be to alleviate suffering during childbirth, but not everyone believed this to be a Good Thing.  Zealous Christians and traditionalists though women should suffer to atone for Eve’s sin, and any attempt to mitigate the pain would allow them to get off far too lightly.
Religious scruples, therefore, stood in the way of many women benefiting in the early days of anaesthesia.  Some men, unwilling to watch their wives suffer, pushed themselves into the vanguard of medical science.  Charles Dickens, not generally credited with being a good husband, insisted, in the face of considerable medical opposition, that Kate should be given chloroform in 1848.  In 1850, Charles Darwin administered the drug to his wife with a hanky after she begged for relief.

Queen Victoria was the most famous recipient of chloroform.  She has a history of difficult births and was becoming increasingly distressed during the weeks leading up to Prince Leopold’s birth.  His impressive record in anaesthesia meant that John Snow was appointed the diminutive monarch’s anaesthetist.  The controversy surrounding this treatment meant that any hint of chloroform had to be suppressed, although rumours abounded.  The medical establishment, represented by The Lancet, condemned the use of anaesthesia in childbirth as irresponsible, and the Queen could not be seen publicly as having taken the ‘easy option’.  Unsurprisingly, however, Snow was thereafter in high demand, and he earned the eternal gratitude of many women.  Sadly, Snow died in 1858, aged only 45 years, but his legacy endured, and his principles of anaesthesia are still recognised today.

Of course, there was also a dark side to chloroform.  Excitable Daily Mail-style editorials reported on helpless victims rendered instantaneously insensible by baddies with chloroform-soaked hankies.  Some people eyed the opportunity of explaining their way out of tricky situations: a solicitor discovered naked in a locked bedroom claimed to have been overpowered by a pair of chloroform-wielding female burglars.  Arthur Conan Doyle fully exploited the narrative possibilities of the drug in his Sherlock Holmes stories, and Anthony Trollope used chloroform for his dystopic vision of enforced euthanasia in The Fixed Period.

One of the many joys of Snow’s book is her interweaving of medical and social history with literature.  In a relatively short account, she manages to embrace a wealth of fascinating detail without ever overloading the reader.  Furthermore, the balanced is pitched just right for the non-expert: Snow doesn’t presuppose detailed medical knowledge, but neither does she feel the need to explain the obvious.  The book is also mercifully free of the breathless narrative style favoured by many current writers of popular science.  The Blessed Days of Anaethesia is an important and absorbing contribution to our understanding of a remarkable medical advance that is so often taken for granted.  I just wish it had been available to poor Fanny Burney.

Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World by Stephanie J. Snow

Filed Under: reviews Tagged With: Anthony Trollope, Arthur Conan Doyle, medicine, Queen Victoria

Beautiful For Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street by Helen Rappaport

April 11, 2010 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Beautiful for Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street by Helen RappaportFellow Victorian geeks will recognise Madame Rachel as Maria Oldershaw, foster mother and business partner of the delicious Lydia Gwilt in Wilkie Collins’  Armadale.  She and her beauty products were also referred to in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret.  In this excellent biography, Helen Rappaport tells the true story of the woman behind the infamous creation of “Madame Rachel”, purveyor of dubious unguents which promised to make women “beautiful for ever”.

Madame Rachel, aka Sarah Rachel Levison, cleverly exploited women’s perennial obsession with youthfulness.  The wealth of background material includes descriptions of actresses nightly wrapping their hands and faces with slices of raw meat in order to preserve their complexions (presumably, it also worked to ward off any unwelcome sexual attention).  There was a range of less repellant, but largely inffectual remedies on the market from such well-known names as Rimmel.  Cosmetics companies vied to claim responsibility for Queen Victoria’s youthful appearance when she came to the throne, which was entirely explicable on account of her being only eighteen.  Figaro in London commented that the queen “must have had decayed teeth, grey hair,  a head nearly bald, scurf, superfluous hair, a tanned skin, rough and sallow complexion, pimples, spots, redness and cutaneous erruptions” in order to require so many products whose daily use was imputed to her.   Madame Rachel was no less modest in her claims when she started advertising her Arabian preparations and enamelling technique in 1859, which were designed for the “restoration and preservation of female loveliness”, and had obtained the “patronage of royalty”.

Despite Punch lambasting what it called “Stucco for the Softer Sex”, Madame Rachel’s enamelling process was in high demand.  This involved:

A careful removal of rough hairs or fuzz on the face … followed by the application of copious amounts of alkaline toilet washes, then a filling-in of wrinkles and depressions in the skin with a thick paste (usually made of arsenic or white lead and other ingredients), followed by applications of rouge and powder to finish off.

Although wealthy women flocked to undergo this dubious treatment, the actress Lola Montes was more sceptical, commenting: “Nothing so effectually writes memento mori! on the cheek of beauty as this ridiculous and culpable practice.”

The exact figures are unknown, but Madame Rachel seems to have made hundreds of thousands of pounds a year from this “ridiculous and culpable practice”, based at her New Bond Street premises.  Gullible patrons were taken in by her risible claims that she and her daughters were many decades older than they appeared and had in fact witnessed the guillotining of Marie Antoinette.  Her clients became addicted to the treatments, often running up ruinous bills which they were then unable to pay.  She ended up in court after one Mrs Carnegie (and her bewildered husband) refused to settle a bill for £938 5s 0d (nearly £65,000 in today’s money).  Interestingly, Rappaport argues that wives spending vast sums of money on beauty treatments partly informed the drafting of the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, which paved the way for women being financially independent and therefore liable for their own debts.

The Carnegie court case gave Madame Rachel her famous catchphrase: ‘beautiful for ever’, which also became the title of her treatise on “Female Grace and Beauty”.  This was essentially a glossy marketing brochure designed to butter up potential customers by praising their inherent female beauty, which could be subtly enhanced by products from an exclusive range.  ‘Exclusive’ essentially meant expensive: an individual consultation with Madame Rachel cost a minimum of £250 (£16,250), and her miraculous Jordan Water cost the modern equivalent of £1,500.  One could argue in her defence that such prices were simply a tax on stupidity (or naivety, if one is to be generous), but Madame Rachel was also engaged in more cynical activities to exploit human weaknesses.  She would often recommend her female customers to take one of her patented Arabian baths at £5 (£325) a time, and then also charge “gentleman” visitors to spy on them through a Judas hole.  To compound matters, she would then convince vulnerable spinsters that eligible aristocratic bachelors wanted to marry them, making all the necessary arrangements for an extortionate fee.  Of course, the marriage never took place, and the hapless victim was left penniless and humiliated.

Amongst the press there was limited sympathy for the unfortunate dupes, but they made much of Madame Rachel’s Jewishness.  The majority of the coverage indulged in sickening anti-semitism, portraying her as a hook-nosed crone who was trying to bleed her victims dry.  In the two major court cases of her career, she was not given a fair trial and was sent to prison on the basis of ethnicity, rather than her questionable activities.  An unbiased judge and jury would have acquitted her on both occasions, but she was born in an age where the aristocracy could do no wrong and all “foreigners” were dubious.  The attendant publicity made her infamous, and her waxwork went on display at both Madame Tussauds and Smithfield Cattle Show.  She became the subject of music hall songs, and there was even a farce called Beautiful For Ever playing to a packed Royal Surrey Theatre.

Apart from her wealthy patrons, Madame Rachel counted amongst her children amongst her victims.  Although one of the daughters was a willing acolyte, setting up a branch in Paris and keeping everything going during her mother’s spells in prison, the other children struggled with notoriety.  The sensational aspects of Madame Rachel’s extraordinary career are poignantly imbricated with the tragic implications for two of her daughters, whose own lives were ruined by association with a notorious con-artist and blackmailer.

Helen Rappaport has skilfully brought together a variety of resources detailing Madame Rachel’s extraordinary career, and has also unearthed hitherto unknown biographical material on her origins.  The story is told compellingly, with clear but unobtrusive historical context.  I am delighted to have had the opportunity to find out more about this curious character who pervades Victorian literature.  While reading the book, I came across a reference to her catchphrase – ‘beautiful for ever’ – in a novel published in 1896, 16 years after Madame Rachel’s death.  Henceforth, I shall be on the look out for her everywhere.

Beautiful For Ever by Helen Rappaport. Victorian Secrets publishes Helen Rappaport’s No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War 

Filed Under: biography, books Tagged With: Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins

Moths by Ouida

January 11, 2010 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Moths by OuidaOuida’s Moths is credited with being the first English novel to show a divorced woman happily remarried, and as such represents a landmark in women’s writing.  Of course many authors, notably of the ‘sensation school’, tackled the thorny issue of divorce, but ultimately either the heroine’s inconvenient spouse would obligingly die at the eleventh hour, or she would have to live a nun-like existence, hidden from society’s disapproving gaze.

I’ve always been slightly wary of Ouida, having hitherto only ever read her work in the form of extracts.  This approach does not do her justice, as what can appear bizarre out of context can be startlingly original when seen as part of a wider picture.  Although generally classed as a sensation novelist, Ouida’s settings owe more to the earlier Silver Fork novels, which dealt with the machinations of fashionable society.  The sparkling narrative sweeps across the glamorous capitals of Europe, to the snowy outposts of the Russian empire.

Moths is the story of Vere Herbert, a serious and beautiful, if slightly gawky, teenager who is forced into marriage with the cruel Russian Prince Zouroff.  Uninterested in the approbation of the demimonde, Vere desperately resists her fate until her mother, the superficial and deluded Lady Dolly, pleads that she must surrender her to the Prince in order to release herself from serious debts.  Resigned to her defeat, Vere strives hard to perform her wifely duty to the man she despises.  As a powerful nobleman with the full force of wealth and the law behind him, Prince Zouroff treats her appallingly, flaunting his extra-marital liaisons and demanding that she befriend his mistresses.  When she refuses to share a house with his lover, the Prince is infuriated by her uncharacteristic defiance, striking her a vicious blow and banishing her to his remote Polish estate.   Having committed both adultery and marital cruelty, the Prince has given his wife grounds for divorce, but he remains confident in the knowledge that a virtuous woman such as Vere would shrink from the horrors of a public scandal.  Her goodness and fortitude drive him to distraction, and his fury manifests itself in a terrible act of violence.  Vere’s quiet submission is eventually broken when she discovers the true reason why Lady Dolly married her off to a brute.

Moths are used as a metaphor for society and women, one character explaining: “[This world] is a world full of moths.  Half the moths are burning themselves in feverish frailty, the other half are corroding and consuming all they touch.” It is Vere’s resistance to becoming a moth that provides much of the narrative interest and contrast.  Although the main male protagonists are essentially ciphers, some of the female characters are brilliantly drawn.  The portrayal of  Lady Dolly’s delusion is masterful;  she believes that had she married a rich man “how easy it would have been to have become a good woman!”  She sees herself as a hapless victim, whilst all the time making terrible decisions that affect both her and Vere.  She also provides comic gems, such as her appalled reaction to her prudish daughter’s old-fashioned bathing costume – “It must have been worn at the deluge.  The very children would stone you!”  Perhaps my favourite line in any Victorian novel is now: “Lady Dolly felt the mist over her eyes again, and this time she knew it was not the prawns.”

Less amusing, despite her name, is Lady Stoat of Stitchley, a sinister and sadistic character who succeeded in “marrying her daughter…to a young marquis, who, with the small exceptions of being a drunkard, a fool, and a brute, was everything that a mother’s soul would desire.”  She encourages the weak Lady Dolly to sacrifice her daughter and chastises Vere when she revolts.  Fuchsia Leach, initially a caricature of a vulgar American, develops into a courageous and sympathetic woman who is prepared to act according to her conscience, rather than merely react to public opinion.  As an outsider, she is impervious to the specious qualities of high society.

Ouida’s philosophy of marriage pervades the narrative.  She is clearly sceptical as to its merits, with the only autonomous female characters being the adulterers and the forthright Fuchsia.  There is a recurring image of marriage as slavery and legalised prostitution, and Vere actually envies the prostitutes their freedom and solidarity.  Although fabulously wealthy and moving in the highest social circles, Vere suffers both mental and physical abuse and must submit to the will of a capricious husband.  As he tells her shortly after their marriage, “I am your master, and I can be a bad master.”

Despite mounting such a direct challenge to the idea that marriage was the desideratum of all young women, Ouida has been accused of timidity by modern critics.  This is an unfair charge, however, as any attempt to be truly radical would have resulted in an outright ban by the circulating libraries.  Indeed, Mudie’s seriously considered withdrawing Moths from their catalogue, but were probably swayed by the novel’s enormous popularity.  Willa Cather has described Ouida as a “brilliant mind that never matured”, but this lack of maturity makes her a particularly engaging and unique writer.

Moths by Ouida.  Published by Broadview Press.  ISBN 1-55111-520-4

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: divorce, Ouida

Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women

January 6, 2010 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women by Jenny HartleyI’m so glad to have come across Jenny Hartley’s book, as it has greatly improved relations between Charles Dickens and me.  We previously had a complicated relationship, as I was unable to forgive him for the appalling way in which he cast aside his wife, Catherine, and consequently, I found his hypocrisy rather repellant.  Hartley seems to share my discomfort, but has addressed her subject with commendable skill and balance – her portrait of the soi-disant Inimitable is sympathetic without being sycophantic.

The eponymous house of fallen women was Urania Cottage in Shepherd’s Bush, established in 1846 by Dickens with the (mainly financial) help of the immensely wealthy Angela Burdett Coutts.  The philosophy behind the project was that it would give unfortunate women shelter from the dangers of society and prepare them for emigration to the colonies.  Unlike similar schemes, the emphasis was on recreating a safe and happy domestic environment, rather than ascetic conditions in which women were required to spend their time contemplating their sins.  Whereas Millbank adopted the silent system in which prisoners were forbidden to communicate, and forced its inmates to wear drab clothing, Dickens insisted that they must build friendships and wear bright clothing (rather like his own).

The staff were under strict instructions not to ask their charges about the past – the focus was to be on the future.  The women were able to learn to read, grow flowers, and enjoy good food; indeed it was a lifestyle far superior to most of their peers in the outside world.  Obviously, such luxury didn’t come cheap, but with an annual income equivalent to £5m, Miss Coutts was happy to bankroll the project if Dickens would manage to day-to-day running.
This was a role which he relished.  As Hartley writes, “this home for fallen women would be another total world for him to control.  Here he could create and run everything according to his rules.”  He concerned himself with the smallest detail and was personally involved in the progress of each woman.  Unsurprisingly, this was to the detriment of his own family, who felt neglected during this period, their household distinctly less cheery than that of Urania Cottage.  Although keen that the women should not dwell on the past, Dickens was emphatic that they should develop in line with his ideas of redemption.  Anyone who thought they could get free lodging and still cause trouble found themselves summarily ejected.  Of one lost cause, Dickens commented: “she would corrupt a nunnery in a fortnight”.

Over the years, Dickens expected an increasing amount of interaction with the women and did, in fact, start eliciting their stories, collecting them in what is known as the Case Book.  Unfortunately, it no longer survives, and Dickens’ plan to work it into a book were aborted.  This is perhaps the most sinister aspect of the story – Dickens uses some of the women in his fiction, and Hartley suggests some cases where his decisions regarding their future may have been dictated by the plot of the novel he was writing at the time.  There is a sense that these women were puppets in a private theatre show.  Hartley makes a compelling argument for Rhena Pollard being the inspiration for Little Dorrit‘s Tattycoram, and she also provides other examples, such as Martha Endell in David Copperfield.

Nevertheless, Urania Cottage was a fine example of mid-Victorian benevolence.  In 1853 Dickens reported to Coutts that out of the first 54 inmates, 30 had emigrated and built good lives in the colonies, 14 had left of their own accord and 10 had been expelled.  Hartley has done sterling work in tracking down some of the women who emigrated, even unearthing a photograph of ‘Tattycoram’.  The stories are immensely touching and would have been very different had those women not been given an opportunity to start a new life.  The experience of being in a pseudo family taught them how to love and to build relationships with others.  Unfortunately, it was Dickens’ own abilities in this area that led to the closure of Urania Cottage.  He met a certain Ellen Ternan and suddenly his fallen women became less compelling.  An irrevocable breach had also developed between him and Miss Coutts after she took his estranged wife’s side in the acrimonious marital separation.

Although constancy was not Dickens’ strong suit and his interest in Urania Cottage was not entirely selfless, he made a significant difference to many vulnerable lives.  The women who passed through its doors were treated with humanity and respect, possibly for the first time in their experience, and for this he should be commended unreservedly.  I’m rather wary when it comes to celebrities promoting good causes, but, whereas I’d very much like to slap Bono, Dickens is now giving me a warm fuzzy glow for the first time.  Jenny Hartley should also be commended for having written such a scholarly, touching and engaging account of these women who have now been given a second opportunity to shine.

Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women by Jenny Hartley

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: Dickens

The Belton Estate by Anthony Trollope

January 4, 2010 By Catherine Pope

The Belton Estate (1865) is the story of a young woman, Clara Amedroz, who vacillates between two suitors: her bucolic but passionate cousin Will, who is heir to her father’s entailed farm, and Captain Aylmer, an urbane but unemotional MP who is tied to his rebarbative mother’s apron strings.  The narrative reflects the Jane Austen novels read by Trollope during the 1860s, and they inform his portrayal of an impecunious unmarried woman.  With no income of her own and an ailing father, marriage is Clara’s only means of survival, and she struggles with her impending dependence on the men who surround her.  She dramatically articulates her frustration: “I think it would be well if all single women were strangled by the time they are thirty.”  The sub-plot, involving Captain and Mrs Askerton, deals with society’s intolerance towards others marital misfortunes (an echo of Dr Wortle’s School) and it also serves to highlight both Clara’s humanity and the superficiality of one of her suitors.

Clara’s position must have been particularly resonant for many of Trollope’s female readers.  There was a growing surplus of women that was soon to reach one million – a situation memorably explored in George Gissing’s The Odd Women.  An intelligent spinster of Clara’s class, with no independent income, often had little option but to become a governess, a position that was only marginally superior to domestic service in terms of conditions and pay.  Real women couldn’t simply live on their wits like Becky Sharp and Lydia Gwilt.

Trollope recognised the difficulties faced by women: “the world is harder to women than to men; that a woman often loses much by the chance of adverse circumstances which a man loses by his own misconduct.”  The passivity demanded of a nineteenth-century woman left her with scant control over her own destiny.  Although Trollope is mindful of that fact, he doesn’t offer any solutions, his innate conservatism cleaving him to the laws of primogeniture and the idea of wifely submission.  He can appreciate the intellectual argument for female emancipation but recoils emotionally from the concept of women having a viable alternative to marriage.  Indeed, Trollope described himself as “an advanced, but still a conservative Liberal.”  During the parliamentary elections, Captain Aylmer campaigns on a ticket of repealing the Matrimonial Causes Act, a recent piece of legislation which, at least theoretically, made it easier for women to divorce unsuitable husbands and laid the foundations for more progressive reform.  He was reaching out to middle-class men who resented the intrusion of the state into their private lives and sought to retain the sexual double standard.

In his introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition, John Halperin accurately describes the novel as being about “the pathology of desire and indifference”.  As such, it seems remarkably slow and tame when compared with the sensation novels that characterised the literary period.  Henry James wrote “we slumber on gently to the end” and the Athenaeum found that “the story drags”.  Trollope himself thought it unmemorable when surveying his oeuvre in his Autobiography (1883).  The novel’s merits certainly do not lie in its originality of plot or incident, but his portrayal of Clara Amedroz is an early triumph of the realist school.  As such, the novel can be seen as an experiment – The Fortnightly Review, the periodical in which it was originally serialised, was a proponent of realism.  Although forward-thinking in his style, and also giving consideration to some of the social issues of the day, the novel’s conclusion is essentially conservative.  Trollope perhaps speaks through Clara when she says: “I’m not prepared to alter the ways of the world, but I feel myself entitled to grumble at them sometimes.”

Filed Under: reviews Tagged With: trollope

Hysteria: the Biography by Andrew Scull

September 19, 2009 By Catherine Pope

There can’t be many conditions more protean and elusive in nature than hysteria.  Andrew Scull’s Hysteria: the Biography is, therefore, a considerable achievement.  It is at once concise, detailed, eminently readable, and also peppered with pleasing literary allusions.

The story begins with hysteria’s uterine origins, and the ancient Greeks’ curious belief that it was caused by “the womb wandering around in search of moisture”.  Yes, quite.  Although it’s easy to be dismissive of such musings, not much progress was made in intervening centuries, and hysteria simply became an easy diagnosis for anyone who was behaving a bit oddly, and it often obfuscated underlying conditions such as tertiary syphilis, multiple sclerosis, tumours, and epilepsy.  Hysteria was also big business, with a profusion of quacks touting their patented remedies.  Sufferers of hysteria, and especially their families, desperately wanted to believe that is was a somatic, rather than mental, illness, and were willing to pay large sums of money for supposed treatments.

One “expert” who jumped on the eighteenth-century bandwagon was George Cheyne, a 32-stone Scot who had already built a successful career as (if you please) a diet doctor.  He did a roaring trade in wealthy patients for whom hysteria was a fashionable disease.  In The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope parodies such women who saw the “vapours” as a sign of superior sensibility:

Hail, wayward Queen!
Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen:
Parent of vapours and of female wit,
Who give th’ hysteric, or poetic fit,
On various tempers act by various ways,
Make some take physic, others scribble plays.

Although many doctors were dismissive of hysteria as a medical condition, they were still happy to take their patients’ money.  Whilst Cheyne’s were entirely ineffectual, other practitioners adopted a more hands-on approach.  The self-styled gynaecologist Isaac Baker Brown thought that women were inferior creatures who were at the mercy of their reproductive organs.  He declared that the origins of hysteria lay in that unmentionable habit, “peripheral excitement of the pudic nerve.”  To prevent idle hands doing the devil’s work, his extraordinary solution was the remove the “cause of excitement” by means of a clitoridectomy.  The only small mercy is that his unfortunate patients were by this time able to benefit from the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic.  He claimed a 100% success rate with no recidivism.  One can only assume that it diverted those poor women’s minds from whatever had been ailing them.

Baker Brown was eventually stopped by his “professional” brethren, but not because of the appalling mutilation he was inflicting on his patients; rather, they objected to his “tradesmanlike” habit of self-promotion, which brought medicine into disrepute.  Only marginally less disturbing was the craze for ovariotomies, thought to be “therapeutic” for hysterical women.  Again, the discontinuation wasn’t due to qualms as to the justification of such butchery; instead, moral reasons were cited: who would marry a woman who was unable to reproduce?  If she engaged in sexual activity, it would be for enjoyment rather than procreation, thus making her no better than a whore.

Surgical intervention came to be replaced with the “rest cure”, which in many respects was no less pernicious in its effects.  Silas Weir Mitchell treated many prominent figures, such as Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.  Gilman famously discredited him in her novella The Yellow Wallpaper, in which she disturbingly described the effects of the complete absence of mental stimulation he prescribed, which brought her “so near the borderline of mental ruin”.  The dislike he provoked in his patients was entirely reciprocated by Mitchell, who quoted Wendall Holmes in saying that the hysterical woman was “like a vampire, slowly sucking the blood of every healthy, helpful creature within reach of her demands.”  Unfortunately, he was not alone in his opinion, and it is hard to fathom how infantilising his patients and denying them any form of intellectual nourishment would make them any happier with their already restricted lives.

The work of the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, although profoundly misogynistic, did at least take a less gendered approach to hysteria, believing as he did that men were equally susceptible.  He developed a method of diagnosis that involved applying pressure on a woman’s ovaries or squeezing a man’s testicles.  I can’t speak for the boys, but imagine that approach would provoke hysteria in the most lucid patient.  His most notorious patient was Blanche Wittman, dubbed the queen of hysteria, who played up to the role required of her.  After finally being discharged sixteen years later, she became Marie Curie’s laboratory assistant, and had both legs and her left arm amputated as a result of radium poisoning.  Another patient, “Augustine”, despite having suffered sexual abuse, was put on show in a state of undress.  She endured this inhumane treatment for five years, before escaping dressed as a man.

This fundamental insensitivity toward any entirely understandable explanations for hysteria persisted into the twentieth century, thanks to Uncle Sigmund.  His unwelcome contribution was to blame the victim for the abuse they suffered and attribute hysteria to feelings of guilt.  Unsurprisingly, a decreasing number of patients were prepared to submit themselves to an expensive session on the couch with a psychoanalyst who would conclude that they were either mad or sexually depraved.

Hysteria, or at least reported cases of it, petered out during the last century and it was officially excised from the list of recognised disorders in the early 1970s.  Interestingly, psychiatrists protested at this change, worried that they were losing a lucrative condition to treat.  Of course, it persists as a term of abuse: a woman who expresses her emotions strongly is “hysterical”, whereas a man exhibiting similar behaviour is justifiably angry/upset.

Scull draws interesting parallels with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, although they are undermined somewhat by his apparent scepticism. The obvious similarity is the reluctance of the medical profession to take seriously a condition that is tricky to diagnose and even trickier to treat.  However, I don’t think it’s helpful to suggest that CFS will come to be seen as a catch-all term for a reaction against modern life, in the same way that hysteria was thought to be the corollary of a woman fighting her biological destiny.  There is already much research to show that CFS is a somatic disease.  I hope the, dare I say, hysterical attempts to dismiss it as yuppie flu will soon seem as ridiculous as some of the treatments meted out to the patients of Cheyne, Charcot and Freud.

Filed Under: reviews

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Featured Book

Avenging Angels: Ghost Stories by Victorian Women Writers

Copyright © 2021 · Victorian Secrets Limited