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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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

Gissing: A Life in Books by John Halperin

August 18, 2009 By Catherine Pope

Photo of George GissingAs with many Victorian writers, George Gissing’s life (1857-1903) reads rather like one of his novels.  In some spooky cases, his life actually imitated his art, the fates suffered by some of his characters later befalling the author.  Born in Wakefield in 1857, George Gissing’s existence was one of eternal struggle.  Although a gifted scholar, the early death of his pharmacist father left Gissing perennially short of money.  His extraordinary talent won him a prestigious scholarship to Owen College (now the University of Manchester) and it looked as though his troubles were over, with a distinguished academic career virtually guaranteed.  However, his weakness for a prostitute called Nell was to be his undoing.  Initially her client, they soon became lovers, but she still demanded increasing sums of money from him to fund her alcohol addiction.  With very limited means, he was forced to steal on her behalf and was eventually caught when the suspicious college authorities laid a trap for him.  He was expelled in disgrace and his family wanted nothing more to do with their black sheep.

After a short spell in prison, Gissing emigrated to Boston, hoping to put some distance between him and his disgrace.  He supported himself through writing and teaching, proving to be gifted at both.  His continued correspondence with Nell, however, meant he was unable to completely embrace his new life, and he soon returned to England.  He settled in London and began eking out an existence through literary hackwork.  Any chance of advancing himself was scuppered by the reappearance of Nell, who came to live him.  Her anti-social behaviour meant they were continually having to look for new lodgings, and her drunken outbursts ruined his concentration.  She would also regularly desert him to return to her old trade.

Despite these considerable challenges, in 1879 Gissing managed to complete his first novel – Workers in the Dawn.  This achievement was tempered by his curious decision to marry Nell a few days before it was finished.  Even more curiously, his action mirrored that of his protagonist, Arthur Golding, a talented artist from humble origins who marries an alcoholic prostitute in the hope of reforming her.  Like Arthur, Gissing believed that marriage would provide a moral framework which would help Nell improve herself, and also give him the stability he craved.  Unfortunately, Workers in the Dawn was not an auspicious start.  No publishers were prepared to take a punt on this unknown writer, and Gissing was forced to spend £125 of his own money to get it published.  This was at the time Disraeli received a whopping £10,000 advance for Endymion, thus illustrating the enduring bankability of celebrity.  He earned a paltry sixteen shillings from sales of 49 copies, and the critical reception was distinctly frosty.
Undeterred, Gissing continued writing in the hope of achieving critical acclaim and financial reward.  He separated from Nell, moving house several times in order to evade her, but she kept tracking him down (just like Arthur Golding’s wife).  The quality of his fiction improved, and novels such as The Unclassed, Demos, Thyrza and A Life’s Morning received some favourable reviews.  There was to be little financial reward, however – his perpetual impecunious state forced him to accept trifling flat rate fees, rather than a potentially more lucrative royalty.  When success came, it was the publishers, rather than Gissing, who benefited.  He worked himself ragged and had but a few hundred pounds a year to show for it.

After a particularly bleak period, a measure of relief came in the form of Nell’s death.  They had been estranged again, and Nell’s body was found in a miserable room in Lambeth.  She had died of alcohol, syphilis, cold and hunger.  Gissing used the powerful emotion evoked by her tragic end to spur him on to new literary heights, beginning with his masterly account of urban decay, The Nether World.   Although this work graphically depicted the plight of London’s poor, Gissing’s agenda was not one of reform, rather a Social Darwinist argument that the very lowest classes were irredeemably hopeless, and any intervention in their miserable lives would be entirely pointless.  Gissing believed that social class was an indelible mark, and that any attempt to rise above one’s station in life would end in disappointment, or worse.  Although an intensely depressing read, The Nether World is a welcome antidote to Dickens’s irrepressibly chirpy cockney sparrows, whose essential good nature shines through the grime of their poverty.  There couldn’t be much more difference between the diminutive heroine of The Old Curiosity Shop and Gissing’s own Nell.

Although Nell’s death had meant freedom for Gissing, he struggled with his solitary state, threatening to appropriate the first “decent work-girl” he could find.  The waspish H G Wells commented that Gissing sought another wife simply because he couldn’t afford prostitutes.  His first biographer wrote that he met Edith Underwood when unbearable solitude prompted him to rush into Baker Street and speak to the first woman he saw.  His intentions towards her were entirely dishonourable – he was too poor to marry an “equal”, so compromised on co-habitation with someone he considered beneath him.  Edith, however, was unconvinced by the merits of a free union, and he was forced to relent and give her the dubious honour of becoming the second Mrs Gissing.

One could take a generous view of his behaviour by concluding that he was distracted by the completion of arguably his greatest novel, New Grub Street.  As Halperin writes, it deals with the “collision of the creative impulse with material circumstances,” a situation with which Gissing was only too familiar.  It is almost masochistic, therefore, that he exacerbated this collision by making another imprudent marriage. Many reviewers disliked the inherent pessimism in New Grub Street, but overall it was praised for its power and skilled execution.  Although sales were brisk, Gissing had again accepted a meagre flat payment (£150), and the profits from one of his most successful novels lined the pockets of his publisher.  He ploughed on with his writing, the time with the more commercially-minded bigamy novel, Denzil Quarrier, the completion of which coincided with the arrival of his first son.  Gissing’s reaction to this addition to his family was characteristically mournful: “The baby has a very ugly dark patch over right eye.  Don’t know the meaning of it.”

With another mouth to feed, Gissing’s financial situation became even more precarious.  Even at his peak, he was averaging only £500 per annum.  He was incredulous at the news that Mrs Humphry Ward had earned £18,000 (around £900,000) from David Grieve. Perhaps the resulting feelings of inadequacy prompted the idea for his next novel, The Odd Women.  Although drawing attention to the predicament of those one million “surplus” spinsters who were destined never to marry, Gissing’s call for women to be educated was inspired by his belief that it would make them better wives for intelligent men (like himself).  He well-publicised views on the matter were:

“I am convinced there will be no social peace until women are intellectually trained very much as men are.  More than half the misery of life is due to the ignorance and the childishness of women…I am driven frantic by the crass imbecility of the typical woman.”

This outburst was perhaps provoked by Edith’s dislike of her husband’s novels and her inability to lose her “vile” London accent.  Marriage seemed not to have a mellowing effect on either of them, and Gissing admitted defeat in 1897, leaving his wife and claiming that she had “behaved like a maniac”.  Magnanimously, Gissing admitted that he too had been at fault in trying to remove her from her natural sphere, gallantly declaring that she “would have made an ordinary mate for the lower kind of London artisan.”  His estrangement from Edith brought Gissing closer to H G Wells and his wife.  The two authors were able to commiserate with one another over their often unfavourable critical reception.  Gissing pondered as to the identity of the reviewers: “Are they women, soured by celibacy and by ineffectual attempts to succeed as authors?…They are beastly creatures.”

It was during the unlikely event of H G Wells teaching Gissing to ride a bicycle that he met the third Mrs Gissing, Gabrielle Fleury.   She had written to him to suggest a French translation of New Grub Street and decided to come and see the author for herself.  She was young, intelligent and beautiful – Gissing’s ideal woman – and he fell hopelessly in love.  Of course, there was the inconvenient matter of the previous Mrs Gissing in London, and she had been making a nuisance of herself by attacking her perceived enemies with a stick.  Although Wells snottily reminded him that his duty lay with his wife and children, Gissing followed his heart and pursued his seemingly futile relationship with Gabrielle.  He knew Edith would never give him the satisfaction of a divorce, and he bemoaned the unfairness of the English marriage laws which trapped men in unhappy unions.  Presumably, it never occurred to him that the law didn’t treat women any better.  His egregious solution was simply to move to France and marry Gabrielle anyway, keeping the news secret from those back home (echoing the plot of his earlier novel Denzil Quarrier).  Divine retribution came in the form of an infuriating mother-in-law, who made his life a misery and practically starved him.  Although he was the first time happy in a relationship, his perpetual lack of money forced him to endure yet another unsatisfactory domestic situation.  The lack of food had a disastrous effect on his already delicate constitution and he decamped Chez Wells to be fattened up.  Meanwhile, in true Victorian sensation tradition, Edith was confined to an asylum.

Gissing’s health continued to deteriorate, with H G Wells and Gabrielle squabbling over his sick bed that the other was responsible for his condition, and his struggle finally ended in 1903.  Although loyal to his friend during life, Wells became positively vituperative after his death, which is not entirely surprising behaviour from this unpleasant little misogynist.  He embarked upon a campaign to undermine Gissing’s literary reputation, which had risen towards the end of his career with the successes of Born in Exile, The Whirlpool, In the Year of Jubilee, and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft.  The Times‘ obituary was rather equivocal, evaluating his output as a “series of books which, if they cannot justly be called great work, were at least the work of a very able and conscientious literary artist, whose purity and solidity may win him a better chance of being read a hundred years hence than many writers of greater grace and more deliberately sought charm.”  Whilst Gissing had greatly envied Mrs Humphry Ward’s astonishing ability to turn out remunerative novels, she is largely forgotten today, while there are three major editions of Gissing’s works in print.

Gissing’s attitude towards women was nothing short of rebarbative, but he is one of the most extraordinary writers of the nineteenth century.  His novels are just as interesting as his life, mainly because they are so overwhelmingly autobiographical.  His obsession with sex, money, and class are on every page, and many characters share his tendency towards exogamous marriages.  Where else in Victorian fiction do the wicked always prosper and the good come to a sticky end?  In Hardy, perhaps, but Gissing’s creations seem more realistic. John Halperin’s biography manages successfully to praise the work without endorsing the opinions of the author.  I don’t always agree with Halperin’s assertions, such as his wholesale dismissal of Workers in the Dawn, but it is refreshing for a biographer to be unashamedly opinionated, rather than attempting to give an illusion of objectivity.  My selfish perspective as a modern reader is that we wouldn’t have the novels without the misery.  Gissing must have known that too, else he wouldn’t have done such a good job of making his life so extraordinarily complicated.  As he said himself, “Few men, I am sure, have led so bitter a life.”  Few men, I am sure,  have written about it so well.

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

Filed Under: biography, books Tagged With: George Gissing, H G Wells

The Plimsoll Sensation by Nicolette Jones

August 17, 2009 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Plimsoll Sensation by Nicolette JonesSamuel Plimsoll MP (1824-1898) is a peripheral character in Victorian history, but his contribution to politics was immense.  His Big Idea was to mark a line on the side of a ship to indicate the lowest level at which it might safely sit in the water.  Although that might sound like plain common sense, opposition to Plimsoll’s proposal was colossal.  Some ruthless shipowners would deliberately over-insure their vessels and send them to sea in a terrible state of repair.  If the ship sank, they would receive several times its value, but the crew would meet with a salty death.  Although such extreme cases were mercifully rare, it was relatively common practice for businessmen to seriously overload their vessels in a bid to maximise profits.  Understandably, sailors were reluctant to crew these “coffin-ships”, but refusal meant three months’ imprisonment – the law protected the criminal, rather than the victim.

Plimsoll was effectively a whistle-blower.  His campaign took 20 years, during which he was pitted against many of his Parliamentary colleagues with vested interests, who were keen to maintain the status quo.  Like a Victorian Joanna Lumley, he whipped up national feeling, thereby shaming the cowardly Government into action.  Opponents cried that profits would be affected, thereby causing job losses (the same tired arguments that were used more recently against the introduction of the minimum wage).  Those who were expected to risk their lives had no voice at all, thanks to the limited franchise.  As one account put it: “The appearance of a seaman in a court of law was as rare as giraffes in drawing rooms.”  Life on the high seas was hard enough without an increased risk of death.  One of the many illuminating anecdotes in the book is that of the weevil-infested ship’s biscuit scampering around the decks of its own accord.  Plimsoll took it upon himself to speak for the underrepresented (and undernourished).

Samuel Plimsoll’s vocation was clear from an early age.  When Oliver Twist was published in 1837, the 13-year-old Samuel was inspired to write a pamphlet entitled A Plan to Have Fatherless and Motherless Children Cared for Instead of Being Consigned to the Workhouse.  This was the beginning of a long career that was to be devoted to standing up for the poor and oppressed.  He initially made a name for himself by supporting the widows and orphans of miners killed in explosions. His indefatigable fund-raising efforts kept many families from the workhouse. Plimsoll was an instinctive campaigner and one who could quickly grasp an issue of importance.  His 1863 paper Is it desirable to consolidate the existing railways of the United Kingdom into one system under government control? has a certain timeless quality.  The chaos caused by a plethora of profit-hungry rail operators is apparently a perennial problem.  He also spoke out against police brutality, and in particular the heavy-handed actions of those charged with controlling public protests.  Later in life, he turned his attentions to the appalling conditions endured by transported livestock, proposing a simple solution (which was ignored).

He wasn’t just a mouthpiece for the causes he espoused, however – he attended protests and was known to leap from his bed when alerted that a coffin-ship was about to set sail.  He direct action in these cases potentially saved hundreds of lives and won him many fans.  It also won him many enemies, who were keen to silence this impertinent man, and did not care for the way in which he was reducing their profits and exposing their villainy to public scrutiny.  Plimsoll became a regular defendant in libel cases and the high costs caused him to lose his house.  Undaunted, he and his wife continued to tour the country, rallying support and raising awareness. His cause was finally vindicated by the passing of the Merchant Shipping Act on 12 August 1876.  For the first time, it was illegal to knowingly send sailors to their deaths, and loading levels were to be marked on the outside of ships with the famous symbol – a circle with a line through the middle – that became popularly known as the Plimsoll Line.  The symbol is even more well-known these days as the London Underground sign.

As one might expect, Plimsoll found it impossible to retire quietly from political life after having achieved his ambition.  Although a devout Christian himself, he was appalled when Charles Bradlaugh’s atheism led to his being prevented from taking his seat in the House of Commons.  Plimsoll saw this action as another example of Parliament’s “spirit of domination and intolerance”.  As Nicolette Jones writes: “Bradlaugh found it easier to secure a place in Madame Tussauds, which admitted him in July 1880, than to be allowed to take the seat his electorate repeatedly voted him into, which did not happen until 1886.”  How odd that Parliament should be out of step with public opinion.

The sincerity of Plimsoll’s beliefs was epitomised by the manner in which he buried his beloved wife, who died ten years after their great achievement.  Although he paid for a private burial plot at Highgate Cemetery, he insisted that the family vault be placed amongst the poor.  This bereavement was a blow from which it took him a few years to recover, but he eventually regained some of his former momentum, this time proposing prison sentences for rich men who raped poor women, referring to them as “crawling creatures”.

Such radical stances resulted in an equivocal response to news of Plimsoll’s death in 1898.  His involvement in controversial campaigns had earned him a reputation as a trouble maker, and the common sense nature of his proposals gave them an air of inevitability which detracted from his considerable achievements.  His method was encapsulated by another national treasure, Tony Benn, almost 100 years later:

We like to think that [social progress] is made by an amendment from a Back Bencher, and accepted by the Government.  It is not like that at all.  Social progress is made when public pressure builds up…My experience is that when people come along with some good idea, in the beginning it is completely ignored: nobody mentions it at all.  If people go on, they are mad, and if the continue, they are very dangerous.  After that, there is a pause and then nobody can be found who does not claim to have thought of it in the first place.  That is how social progress is made.

Nicolette Jones’ biography is another welcome tribute to Plimsoll’s life and career.  She has produced a meticulously-researched and highly readable account which is carefully placed within its historical context, along with a wealth of informative (but not excessive) detail.   The book is an excellent example of how skilled biographers can bring our attention to once-prominent figures who have been unjustly forgotten.  We need a few Samuel Plimsolls today to stand up for those who are crushed by the relentless pursuit of profit.

The Plimsoll Sensation: The Great Campaign to Save Lives at Sea by Nicolette Bell

Filed Under: biography, books

The Mysterious Marie Corelli – Queen of Bestsellers by Teresa Ransom

May 12, 2009 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Mysterious Miss Marie Corelli by Teresa RansomI was prompted to seek out The Mysterious Marie Corelli – Queen of Bestsellers after reading The Sorrows of Satan.  Quite apart from the astonishingly narcissistic writing style, I was tantalised by the short accompanying biography, which suggested a fascinating and contradictory life.  Although an independent and successful woman, she vehemently opposed women’s suffrage, referring to the Suffragettes as “Ladies who scream”.  Her novels portray marriage as the desideratum of all girls, yet she chose to share her life with another woman, Bertha Vyer.

It was known that she had been adopted by the poet and journalist Charles Mackay, but manuscripts unearthed after her death suggest he was actually her biological father, and that she had been born illegimately.  In order to hide her “shameful” past, she claimed Italian lineage and appropriated the name Corelli.  Her real name was the more prosaic “Mills”.  After the death of her mother, money was tight and she approached the publisher Bentley & Son with a proposal for a novel called Lifted Up.  It was accepted and later published under the title of A Romance of Two Worlds.  Although Oscar Wilde was utterly charmed by it, critics were dismissive of her “ridiculous ideas”.  However, this Italian writer with a mysterious past captured the public’s imagination and it was a huge success.

A number of other triumphs followed, and Miss Corelli was becoming a household name.  She was rapidly acquiring celebrity friends, such as Ellen Terry, and Lillie Langtry asked to play one of her heroines in a stage adaptation. Even William Gladstone called at her home in the hope of meeting the great lady.  Although her reputation was enormous, she was little over 4ft in height and would stand on a raised dais to greet her guests.

One of her most curious publications was My Wonderful Wife. A Study in Smoke.  It is a sardonic look at “a few specimens of women of the future,” and concerns the “unnatural and strutting embryos of a new sex which will be neither male or female.”  Corelli abhorred the New Woman, seeing her as symbolic of all that was wrong with the world.  Like many of her contemporary women authors, she had an ambivalent attitude towards feminism.  Although she believed women should be treated as intellectual equals, she still thought they should be subservient to men.

Perhaps it was the excitement caused by the patronage of the royal family that caused Corelli to overreach herself by publishing anonymously The Silver Domino, a satire lampooning other writers.  Of Rhoda Broughton, she comments: “The liberties she takes with the English language are frequently vulgar and unpardonable.  Familiarity with ‘slang’ is no doubt delightful, but some people would prefer a familiarity with grammar.”  Mrs Henry Wood, she said, wrote “in the style of an educated upper housemaid.”  An attack on Oscar Wilde prompted him to reconsider his earlier enthusiasm for her work.  He is reported to have said in Reading Gaol: “from the way she writes, she ought to be here.”  The controversy caused by the book resulted in an irrevocable rift with her publisher.  Undaunted, she soon found another publisher and began work on her next book.

Barabbas is a bizarre retelling of the crucifixion story, in which she gives Judas a sister – Judith Iscariot.  It’s hard to read her description of Jesus Christ without cringing:

Still as a statue of sunlit marble He stood, erect and calm.  His white garments flowing backward from His shoulders in even picturesque folds, this displaying his bare rounded arms, crossed now on his breat in a restful attitude of resignation, yet in their very inertness suggesting such mighty muscular force as would have befitted a Hercules.  Power, grandeur, authority and invincible supremacy were all silently expressed in His marvellous and incomparable Presence.

Again, the critics dismissed it and the public couldn’t get enough.  It was even quoted from the pulpit, presumably seen as a vital antidote to the poison of decadent literature.

Changes in the literary marketplace further boosted Corelli’s success.  It was announced that from the beginning of 1885 the circulating libraries and booksellers would both hold new titles at the same time, rather than the libraries being given a six-month headstart.  This greatly increased sales of popular writers, and consequently, the initial sales of The Sorrows of Satan were higher than those of any previous novel written in English.

A period of ill health followed and Corelli showed her commitment to a woman’s right to a profession by allowing a female surgeon to perform a hysterectomy.  She moved to a hotel in Brighton to convalesce, but was continually hounded by the press.  Her doctor advised a move to the countryside, and she decided upon Stratford-upon-Avon.  She soon endeared herself to the community by getting involved with local events and paying for the entire grammar school to go to the circus.

After a break of three years, she resumed her novel writing, but her relationship with the critics had not improved.  She even trained her dog to tear up the negative reviews.  Her relationship with the people of Stratford-upon-Avon was also deteriorating, her interference in the matter of a Shakespeare monument causing ill-feeling.  The press waded into the argument and it became a cause célèbre.  Although her argument eventually won the day, she was thought to have rather overplayed her hand and was christened “Quarelli” by one wag.  A further intervention into town planning procedures alienated even more of her neighbours.

She aired some of her grievances in her next novel, God’s Good Man, and also criticised the Church, which she saw as insufficiently Christian.  Needless to say, the heroine is a diminutive and misunderstood woman who is persecuted by her enemies.  The local community were none too pleased with this further slight.  Rather than adopting a low profile, she instead imported a Venetian gondola, complete with gondolier in full regalia, to transport her and Bertha on the River Avon.

Corelli became increasingly paranoid about her appearance and sought to carefully control her image.  On one occasion she threw a blanket over her head when she spotted a camera lens pointing in her direction.  She wanted the public to retain an idealised portrait of an eternally youthful author.  After sitting for a London photographer, she was horrified to receive a set of prints showing a plump woman with a wrinkled face.  She demanded that the photographer made alterations to give her a younger and slimmer appearance.  It is an impressive feat of trickery in pre-Photoshop days.

Although Corelli was busy accumulating enemies, she did strike up an unlikely friendship with fellow author Ouida.  Like Corelli, she was a successful writer, opposed female suffrage, and was as mad as a stick.  Her extravagant lifestyle, which included keeping 40 horses and 30 dogs, left her in penury and she couldn’t afford to eat.  Corelli launched a campaign to republish some of her work to generate royalties, but Ouida was horrified by the suggestion of charity and refused all help.  She died of malnutrition six months later.

Just before the outbreak of World War One, Corelli wrote an impassioned anti-war tract.  Her plea against “the ghastly holocaust of slaughtered bodies” still resonates today.  Unfortunately for her, it didn’t chime with the jingoism of the day, and she soon threw herself into the war effort.  Her initially commendable activities were overshadowed by an unfortunate (and unfair) conviction for hoarding sugar.  The press reacted with glee, and she was deeply embarrassed.  The resulting publicity led to her being inundated with letters accusing her of hypocrisy.

The stress took its toll on her, and by the age of 64, she resembled a woman of 80.  It is telling that her 1918 novel The Young Diana features a woman who undergoes scientific experimentation in order to regain her youth.  She wrote one last novel and then began to slow down, actually mellowing in her old age.  Her long-held resistance to women’s suffrage was finally relaxed when she concluded that the sexes were equal in all respects: “By every law of justice they should have the vote – and I who, as a woman, was once against it, now most ardently support the cause.”
As her health declined, she also became more relaxed towards her enemies and had made her peace with many of them before she suffered a serious heart attack in January 1924.  She passed away three months later.  In death, as in life, she divided public opinion, with some mourning her passing, and others taking the opportunity to parody her.  Her memorial was a marble angel pointing to heaven, which is probably how she saw herself.  Her lifelong companion, Bertha, was utterly distraught but fought hard to maintain her posthumous reputation.

Although Marie Corelli was undeniably a difficult character, and in many ways an unlikeable one, Teresa Ransom has done her justice in this excellent biography.  Although only too aware of her subject’s faults, she does an admirable job of showing her more endearing qualities and presenting a flawed human being, rather than a caricature.  Corelli’s oeuvre is also thoughtfully evaluated and placed within its literary context.  Although not the most talented novelist, Corelli’s ideas were ahead of her time and she also established an important precedent for authors to be appropriately remunerated for their labours.

The Mysterious Marie Corelli – Queen of Bestsellers by Teresa Ransom

Filed Under: biography, reviews Tagged With: Marie Corelli

Mrs Humphry Ward by John Sutherland

April 16, 2009 By Catherine Pope

Photo of Mrs Humphry WardMary Augusta Ward (1851-1920) is one of the many intriguing Victorian personalities who make the nineteenth century such a perfect place for academic rummaging.  John Sutherland’s biography manages to successfully evaluate both the writer and the woman, with just the right balance between it being scholarly and accessible.

Ward was born in Hobart, Tasmania into a veritable Victorian dynasty:  the Arnolds.  Her grandfather was the infamous Dr Thomas Arnold of Rugby and her uncle was Matthew Arnold, affectionately known as Uncle Matt.  Dr Arnold had an astonishingly strong work ethic, much parodied by Lytton Strachey in Eminent Victorians, and this both inspired and alarmed his family.  Although he rather undermined his own teachings by dying at the age of just 47, he continued to exert a powerful influence over the other Arnolds.  According to Sutherland, his “dead but inextinguishable presence loomed over their subsequent lives like some deity in a Greek tragedy.”

As is often the case, his strength of character was not inherited by his eldest son, Tom (Mary’s father), who was permanently tossed on the horns of a dilemma.  His conversion to Catholicism scuppered his chances of a plum job in Australia, and the family were forced to move to England.  His outraged wife vented her frustration by hurling a brick through the window of the local Catholic cathedral.  Although Tom finally landed a job in Oxford and set up home there, Mary was banished to boarding school for eight years, while her siblings were allowed to remain in the bosom of the family.  There appears to be no evidence to suggest why she was effectively quarantined, but her tempestuous nature might have been deemed to be a bad influence.  There is one documented incident where she was discovered flinging buttered slices of bread at her governess.  This exclusion during her formative years unsurprisingly left its mark on Mary, and she craved affection and approval throughout her life.  Sutherland becomes rather too psychoanalytical at various points, seeing a father-daughter dynamic in all her subsequent relationships with men.  I think he overlooks the fact that most women were treated as children and were naturally deferential towards men.

More plausible is Sutherland’s assertion that Tom’s weak character was “as malign an influence on his family as any wife-beater, drunkard, adulterer or gambler”.  His tergivisations brought shame upon the Arnolds and seriously affected his ability to earn a living.  Extraordinarily, he later converted to Anglicanism, only to again renounce his faith in favour of Catholicism.  In the meantime, scant attention was given to his children, and the highly intelligent Mary received only a rudimentary education.  She was clearly being prepared for marriage, and no other option was available to her.

Humphry Ward was one of seventeen children.  His poor mother died at the age of 42, presumably exhausted.  Like Mary, he would have received little attention from his parents, but did at least have the opportunity of going to Oxford.  He became great friends with Walter Pater, and it seems that they enjoyed an unlikely romantic tryst in Sidmouth.  Although not quite the useless cipher of a husband with whom many Victorian women novelists were lumbered, Humphry had an unremarkable career, and the family soon became reliant on Mary’s writing.  He managed to eke out a living as a journalist, but would fritter away more money than he earned on largely unsuccessful art speculations.  Perhaps to compensate for his failure, Mary was keen to subsume her identity into that of her husband – styling herself throughout her career as Mrs Humphry Ward – what Sutherland pleasingly refers to as a “chattel name”.

Her status as a writer was finally endorsed when she established that all-important room of her own when the family moved to London in 1881.  It was here in 1885 that she conceived her most famous work, Robert Elsmere.  She wrote to her publisher that she had the novel all planned and that she would take “five quiet months in the country to write it.  It will be in two volumes.”  Anyone who has ever had to produce a long piece of written work will be aware of the extreme folly in setting aside a block of time and banking on it being quiet.  The gestation period of what she referred to as her “baby” was actually three years, and the first draft weighed in at an eye-watering 1,358 pages – around three times the length of the average three-decker.  Consequently, she was forced to embark upon the painful journey of excising large chunks of the narrative, before finally publishing the novel in February 1888.  Sutherland remarks that it took an inexplicably long time for reviews to appear.  However, those who have read Robert Elsmere will know that even the revised version is still a weighty tome of around 800 pages, much of it dealing with theological debate, so the reviewers couldn’t really be expected to rush out a considered response within a few days.   The Times called it “a clever attack upon revealed religion”, and William Gladstone’s copy was annotated with objections to Ward’s heterodoxy.

In the Victorian age, nothing was more likely to generate publicity than religious controversy, and Robert Elsmere became a runaway success.  Mrs Humph made around £4,000 in royalties, which would today put her in the millionaire author bracket.  As Sutherland writes, she became a “money-generating fiction machine,” earning around £45,000 over the next decade.  She would have earned more if it weren’t for the absence of international copyright laws when Robert Elsmere was first published.  Many cheap US editions were hurriedly produced to cash in on its success.  Some were sold as loss leaders for just 4 cents, and other copies were given away free with every cake of Maine’s Balsam Fir Soap.  Apparently, this special offer was supposed to convey the idea that cleanliness was next to godliness.

In addition to maintaining her prodigious literary output, Ward was also involved with a number of causes.  She was the moving spirit behind the establishment of Somerville College, and chose the name as an homage to the mathematician Mary Somerville.  She also masterminded the establishment of the Passmore Edwards Settlement, an invalid school, and by 1906 there were 23 special schools for disabled children.  Unfortunately, her extraordinary achievement in this hitherto neglected area was greatly undermined by her rather repellent views in other areas.  Like many people, she became increasingly conservative with advancing years and became manifest in her anti-Boer, anti-Home Rule and anti-female suffrage stance.  It was the latter position that severely affected her transition from Victorian to Edwardian.  As Sutherland writes, her “implacable crusade to deny women the vote was as offensive to most under thirties as a campaign to send little boys back up chimneys.”  She became seen as an inveterate Victorian at a time when that epithet was entirely pejorative.  Lytton Strachey mercilessly lampooned her, and Max Beerbohm reviled her as “Ma Hump”.  Somerville College was eventually moved to disown her, as her ante-diluvian views were hardly compatible with an institution seeking the advancement of women.

Although rejected by the more progressive sections of society, Ward was embraced as a much welcome figurehead for the parliamentary anti-suffragists.  Here was a successful woman who felt no need to have the vote.  Indeed, she thought the very idea unseemly and cried “For Heaven’s sake, don’t let us be the first to make ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of Europe!”  She helped establish The Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League in 1908 and campaigned extensively against the suffragists, also using several of her novels to criticise them.  Although believing that women had no place in politics, she still saw fit to orchestrate her feckless son’s election campaign, writing his speeches for him and reminding him to wrap up warm when he was on the hustings.  He was ridiculed as “the member for Mrs Humphry Ward”, and the Suffragettes would send him postcards after his anti-suffrage speeches saying “Mother will be pleased!”

The First World War was something of a mixed bag for Ward.  She enjoyed a resurgence in popularity after writing propaganda such as England’s Effort, and her anti-suffrage work was placed on hold.  However, there was little demand for her fiction and the new super tax relieved her of much of her fortune.  Her husband and son did their best to relieve her of the rest.  Her beloved homes in London and Hertfordshire had to be let to Edith Wharton and she never recovered her former social status.  Her final triumph came when she successfully lobbied Parliament to make provision for physically disabled children in the Education Bill of 1918.  One can only agree with Sutherland’s sentiments that she could have enjoyed many similar worthwhile successes had she not wasted 10 years trying to deny women the vote.

Ward’s body finally gave up on her in 1920, after many years battling debilitating pain and gynaecological problems for which she took liberal quantities of cocaine (“It works like magic”).  Virginia Woolf commented: “Mrs Ward is dead; poor Mrs Humphry Ward; and it appears that she was merely a woman of straw after all – shovelled into the ground and already forgotten.”  There is perhaps an element of truth in this characteristically unkind assertion, but Ward has left a legacy as powerful as that of her grandfather.  Aside from her variable literary output (some of it truly great), she made laudable progress in the fields of women’s education and the treatment of disabled children.  The Passmore Edwards Settlement still exists, now as the Mary Ward Centre, and Somerville College enabled women to educate themselves for paths other than marriage.

Unfortunately, these inestimable achievements have been overshadowed by her work with The Women’s Anti-Suffrage League.  It seems incomprehensible to the modern reader that such a formidable woman would not wish to be enfranchised.  This biography doesn’t offer any explanations, other than suggesting that she was simply seeking to please father figures.  However, she was far from the only woman novelist to hold such views.  There are obvious parallels with fellow anti-suffragist Mrs Oliphant, who was also required to be a fiction machine in order to support her ineffectual menfolk.  I wonder whether they both dreamed of a life in which they could inhabit the traditional female sphere and were not relied upon as the main breadwinner?  They share a certain nostalgia for an age which probably never existed, and also a resistance to the inexorable pace of social change.  Although Mrs O hopped the twig in 1897, Ward was forced to face the onslaught of the twentieth century.  Her inherent contradictions are what make her so fascinating.

Victorian Secrets publishes Mary Augusta Ward’s (Mrs Humphry Ward’s) Robert Elsmere and Helbeck of Bannisdale.

Filed Under: biography, books

Hillaire Belloc by A N Wilson

December 2, 2008 By Catherine Pope

Hilaire Belloc

Image via Wikipedia

I had expected to like Hillaire Belloc.  It was a profound disappointment, therefore, to learn from A N Wilson’s biography that he was a frightful anti-semite who neglected his wife and thought the world owed him a living.  Mind you, one cannot fail to be impressed that he managed to walk the 58 miles from Oxford to London in just eleven and a half hours.  His literary output was also impressive, although mainly in terms of quantity rather than quality.  His mother lost the family fortune, partly through converting to Roman Catholicism and partly due to entrusting a stockbroker lodger with £12K.  Undeterred, Belloc still imagined he was going to inherit great wealth and become an idle gentleman.  Paradoxically, he styled himself as a Radical and was elected to Parliament as such by the good people of Salford.  However, his stance seemed to be motivated more by envy of the rich, rather than a genuine commitment to social change.  He soon resigned his seat, proclaiming that Parliament was boring and undemocratic, and shocked that the country appeared to be run by an oligarchy who were concerned only to protect the interests of bankers.  Not much has changed there, then.

Although much about the man himself is distasteful, even taking into account the prevailing attitudes of the day, the biography is a superb examination of a particularly fertile period of history (1870-1953), and Wilson’s treatment of the religious, social and political issues is masterly.  This is not surprising, given he also covered this era brilliantly in The Victorians and After the Victorians.  His attention to historical detail helps illuminate the often confusing thoughts of Belloc, for whom ignorance of a subject was no barrier to writing about it.  An extraordinary man and an extraordinary age.

Filed Under: biography, books Tagged With: books

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