divorce Archives - Victorian Secrets

New edition of Weeds by Jerome K. Jerome

October 31, 2012 By Catherine Pope

We’re very pleased to announce a new critical edition of Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters by Jerome K. Jerome.

First published anonymously in 1892, Weeds marked a significant departure from the humour that made Jerome K. Jerome famous. This disturbing story of sexual corruption shows marital fidelity as a perpetual struggle, with Dick Selwyn falling for the attractions of his wife’s young cousin, Jessie. The link between mental and physical corruption is sustained through a central metaphor of a weed-infested garden, which perishes through neglect.

With its radical ending, this story of the dark side of passion casts an important light on late-nineteenth-century sexual politics and gender ideology. Jerome engages with contemporary debates on degeneration and the emergence of the New Woman, offering a powerful evocation of fin-de-siècle society.

This edition, edited by Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton includes an introduction, explanatory footnotes, author biography, and a wealth of contextual material. Available in print and Kindle editions.

Find out more about Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters by Jerome K. Jerome

Weeds by Jerome K. Jerome

October 31, 2012 By Catherine Pope

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

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

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

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

Lady Worsley’s Whim by Hallie Rubenhold

January 25, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Lady Worsley's Whim by Hallie Rubenhold There’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.

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

December 20, 2010 By Catherine Pope

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moths by Ouida

January 11, 2010 By Catherine Pope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Victorian Sex Goddess: Lady Colin Campbell and the Sensational Divorce Case of 1886

June 12, 2009 By Catherine Pope

Although “Victorian Sex Goddess” is a rather sensational title for a book, this account of the redoubtable Lady Colin Campbell by G H Fleming is refreshingly understated. I’m sure few writers could resist the temptation to ham up one of the most dramatic court cases in British legal history. He mainly allows the case to speak for itself, but includes a plethora of seemingly insignificant details which both delight and enlighten the reader.

Lady Colin Campbell was born Gertrude Blood in 1857 and enjoyed a liberal upper-middle-class upbringing. She developed into an attractive, intelligent and urbane woman. Unfortunately, she was also impulsive, agreeing to marry Lord Colin Campbell MP just three days after they met on holiday in Scotland. A whirlwind romance ensued, followed by elevation into high society. Marital felicity was not to be her lot, however. Lord Colin, it appeared, had knowingly infected her with syphilis. The delicate state of his lower portions meant that they had initially refrained from sexual relations, but after a few months, Lord Colin handed his wife a note from his doctor stating that intercourse would be beneficial to his health. Hardly a billet-doux. As a husband’s conjugal rights were paramount, she consented.

Unsurprisingly, Lord Colin’s illness overshadowed the marriage, and the relationship quickly broke down. He was an irascible patient and frequently violent towards his nurses. Lady Colin, understandably, kept her distance and tried to build an independent life for herself. It is hard to imagine that she would have agreed to marry Lord Colin had she know the full truth regarding his medical background and the risk it posed to her. Of course, it was unseemly for a woman to be even vaguely aware of such matters. As she tried to estrange herself from him, he simply asserted his legal mastery over her and endeavoured to force her to leave the marital home. Had she done so, she could not have sued for maintenance, which would have left her destitute. Wives were unable to take this action until the passing of the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1886. Furthermore, choosing this course would have suggested that the blame lay with her and placed her in an invidious position.

The law did partially come to Lady Colin’s rescue. During a court hearing in March 1886, the judge was convinced that Lord Colin had infected her with syphilis and granted a decree of separation, a decision that was upheld on appeal. Lady Colin moved in with her parents, and the recently passed Married Women’s Property Act meant that she retained control over her own modest financial resources. Before 1882, they would have been automatically ceded to her husband on marriage.

Lord Colin was outraged by her defiance and pledged to ruin her reputation in a full divorce trial, knowing that her behaviour would be viewed by many to be unwifely. He accused her of adultery with a Duke, a General, a surgeon, and London’s fire chief (not at the same time), whilst she countered with charges of adultery and cruelty. At that time, wives could not divorce their errant husbands on grounds of adultery alone – it had to be “aggravated” by cruelty or desertion, this double standard having been enshrined in law by the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. Lady Colin’s counsel argued that Lord Colin knowingly infecting her with syphilis constituted cruelty.

What followed was a forensic examination of an upper-class marriage. The case stretched over eighteen days during the final weeks of 1886 and saw a procession of more than fifty witnesses and a barrage of revelations concerning both parties. Fleming has carefully assembled a transcript from over forty newspaper reports and presented it with illuminating, yet unobtrusive, commentary. Fortunately, the quality broadsheets of the day tended to quote considerable chunks of court cases verbatim. The nineteenth-century tabloids, on the other hand, were obsessed with Lady Colin’s sexuality, one describing her as a “sex-goddess”, and another declaring that she possessed “the unbridled lust of Messalina and the indelicate readiness of a common harlot.”

Some witnesses extolled Lady Colin’s intellectual virtues, which actually did her more harm than good. The gentlemen of the jury (for there were no ladies at that time) were likely to be unimpressed by a woman defying her conventionally prescribed role. Her involvement in good causes also counted against her, the prosecution thundering that: “A married woman with a husband is better employed looking after him than in attending forty charitable concerts in the course of a year.” Although Lady Colin’s QC described how unbearable life with her husband had become, public opinion decreed that she should submit to him unquestioningly. Lord Colin was clearly upholding a husband’s right to behave badly with impunity, whilst his wife was far ahead of her time in believing there were limits to what she should reasonably be expected to tolerate.

The jury took some considerable time to reach a verdict, but eventually cleared both Campbells of adultery. As that was the only grounds for divorce at the time, they had to content themselves with a legal separation. Although her reputation had taken a considerable battering, Lady Colin was officially exonerated and she smiled as she left court. Lord Colin (or at least his father) was landed with a legal bill of £20,000 and soon departed for an undistinguished career at the Bar in Bombay.

Lady Colin did a much better job of reinventing herself, although she never quite escaped the notoriety of having been part of the longest-running divorce case ever seen. She found herself a modest apartment and embarked upon a varied and prolific career in journalism, also writing several novels and a play. She espoused such causes as the introduction of cycle lanes and equal smoking rights for women. She could easily have settled for a quiet life of penitence and reflection, but instead continued to push the boundaries. Lord Colin died of pneumonia in 1885, leaving Lady Colin free to marry, an opportunity of which she declined to avail herself. Debilitating rheumatism left her increasingly reclusive and she died in 1911 at the age of 53. Ahead of her time, as ever, she opted for cremation over the more traditional burial.

As this book focuses on the trial and its background, there is only brief consideration given to her subsequent career. Happily, a spot of Googling has shown that a full-length biography by Anne Jordan is forthcoming. Lady Campbell should be remembered for more than just her unfortunate choice of husband.

Lady Colin Campbell: Victorian Sex Goddess by G H Fleming