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Dear Florence, Her Father’s Name (1876) features the best (and worst) of what a Victorian Sensational novel has to offer: an exotic location, murder, a cross-dressing heroine with…… Read more “A creature of strength and grace and beauty and softness”
Tag: England
To search for the sources of joy
Hi, folks, Inspired by Buried.In.Print’s Mavis Gallant and Alice Munro reading projects, I decided to incorporate more short stories into my weekly reads, and I thought that…… Read more “To search for the sources of joy”
Radclyffe Hall
Radclyffe Hall (Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe Hall, 12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943) was an English writer. After her parents’ divorce, in 1883, when she was three, Radclyffe…… Read more “Radclyffe Hall”
Solitary and savage had been her life
Dear Elizabeth, The collection Gothic Tales, edited by Laura Kranzler (2000), comprises your most famous ghost stories published from 1851 to 1861. Reading those stories is like…… Read more “Solitary and savage had been her life”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet. She was educated at home. Except for some instruction in Greek…… Read more “Elizabeth Barrett Browning”
Eat me, drink me, love me
Dear Christina, Your Goblin Market (1862) is a poem which teasingly resists a fixed interpretation. Is it a feminist tale / an anti-capitalist warning / a Christian…… Read more “Eat me, drink me, love me”
Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti (Christina Georgina Rossetti, 5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English poet. She was the youngest of four children of Gabriele Rossetti, an…… Read more “Christina Rossetti”
The most wonderful thing in the world must be to be a childless widow
Dear Elizabeth, Irony is your plaything in Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930), to the point where it starts to be slightly subversive. Written as a series…… Read more “The most wonderful thing in the world must be to be a childless widow”
E. M. Delafield
E. M. Delafield (pen name of Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née Edmée Elizabeth Monica de la Pasture; 09 June 1890 – 02 December 1943) was an English author. She…… Read more “E. M. Delafield”
Before I knew I had a heart
Dear Charlotte, In Emmeline, The Orphan of the Castle (published in four volumes in 1788), we have a Cinderella-like heroine surrounded by characters who are constantly burning their…… Read more “Before I knew I had a heart”
Charlotte Smith
Charlotte Turner Smith (4 May 1749 – 28 October 1806) was an English author. Her mother died when she was three years old and, immediately afterwards, her…… Read more “Charlotte Smith”
There might be nothing there
Dear Brigid, Very much like identities are fluid in your The King of a Rainy Country (1956), so the book itself refuses a label. Divided into three…… Read more “There might be nothing there”
Brigid Brophy
Brigid Brophy (Brigid Antonia Brophy, Lady Levey, 12 June 1929 – 7 August 1995) was a British writer. The only daughter of the Anglo-Irish novelist John Brophy, Brigid…… Read more “Brigid Brophy”
The most beautiful and most brittle of all human things
Dear Frances, It’s a truth universally acknowledged – or, at least, in the relatively small world of your Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance…… Read more “The most beautiful and most brittle of all human things”
Singularity
“Love is really a recognition of truth, a recognition of another person’s integrity and truth in a way that is compatible with — that makes both of…… Read more “Singularity”
Frances Burney
Frances Burney (also known as Fanny Burney; married name Madame d’Arblay; 13 June 1752 – 6 January 1840) was an English writer. While her sisters were sent…… Read more “Frances Burney”
Kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths
Dear Henry, The Heart of the Matter (1948) is a book about a man caught in the vortex of a moral crisis – and, ultimately, torn apart and…… Read more “Kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths”
Graham Greene
Graham Greene (Henry Graham Greene, 2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer. He studied history at Balliol College, Oxford. After graduation, in 1925, Greene worked…… Read more “Graham Greene”
