Victorian Secrets

Eliza Lynn Linton is an unlikely heroine for me, given she is best known for her anti-feminist articles ‘The Girl of the Period’ for the Saturday Review. While her journalism alerted readers to the dangers of the New Woman in all her guises, Linton’s novels – quite literally – tell a different story. First published in 1867, Sowing the Wind features an emancipated woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to Linton herself. Like her creator, Jane Osborn works as a journalist on a daily newspaper, managing to thrive in a masculine environment and to earn the respect of her male colleagues. Linton was actually the first woman journalist in England to earn a salary, and was described by Charles Dickens as “good for anything, and thoroughly reliable”.1 Jane works to support her mother, an endearing but unworldly woman, and her recently discovered cousin, Isola. ...

One of the many joys of delving into the nineteenth century is meeting the numerous vibrant characters who inhabited it. I first encountered ‘Lord’ George Sanger when researching the Hyde Park celebrations that marked Queen Victoria’s accession. Over nine days in June 1838, Sanger and his circus family thrilled the crowds with learned pigs and clairvoyant ponies. Their remarkable troupe also included ‘Living Curiosities’: the pig-faced woman, the living skeleton, the world’s tallest woman, and cannibal pygmies. Something for everyone, I’m sure you’ll agree. ...

First published in 1887, Gissing intended Thyrza to “contain the very spirit of London working-class life”. He spent long hours researching the novel in south London, watching and listening to the inhabitants as they went about their business. His story tells of Walter Egremont, an Oxford-trained idealist who gives lectures on literature to workers, some of them from his father’s Lambeth factory. Thyrza Trent, a young hat-trimmer, meets and falls in love with him, forsaking Gilbert Grail, an intelligent working man who Egremont has put in charge of his library. ...

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. ...

I 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. ...

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

A Mummer’s Wife (1885) was my first introduction to George Moore, and I found myself captivated by this intriguing literary figure, who attracted praise and censure in equal measure. W B Yeats found the novel so shocking that he forbade his sister to read it, and the conservative press was almost unanimous in condemning its “coarseness”. Moore’s novel tells the story of Kate Ede, a bored Midlands housewife unhappily married to an asthmatic draper. When Dick Lennox, a handsome travelling actor, comes to lodge with her family, Kate succumbs to temptation, with disastrous consequences. Moore describes in almost unbearable detail Kate’s sense of claustrophobia, disillusionment, and subsequent ignominious descent into alcoholism. 124 years after it was first published, A Mummer’s Wife retains its ability to shock. ...

Bigamy, bisexuality, and betrayal form the sensational plot of Demos (1886), the third published novel from super-grump George Gissing. Although the novel’s sub-title – ‘A Story of English Socialism’ – doesn’t make it sound terribly exciting, politics and social unrest form the backdrop, and the foreground narrative is both tight and compelling. George Orwell, perhaps anticipating Twitter, pithily described Demos as “a story of the moral and intellectual corruption of a working-class Socialist who inherits a fortune.” The Socialist in question is Dick Mutimer, a serious-minded mechanic who leaves behind his old life and in a slum district of London without the least compunction. Meanwhile, the presumed heir to the fortune, aesthete Hubert Eldon, returns from the Continent with a mysterious bullet wound and discovers that his comfortable position has been usurped by a rough young parvenu. Mutimer uses his new-found wealth to establish an ironworks and model village in the fictional Midlands town of Wanley, and is able to realise his long-held dream of improving the lot of Demos – the working man. ...

I must confess to never having been a big fan of Kipling – tales of empire and derring-do aren’t quite my cup of tea. However, his first novel, The Light that Failed (1891), has proved to be a revelation, and quite unlike any of Kipling’s subsequent work. The novel is partly autobiographical and tells the story of war artist Dick Heldar, his doomed relationship with childhood sweetheart Maisie, and his descent into blindness. Through Dick, Kipling considers the relationship between art and life, espousing his belief that the artist has a duty to paint only what he knows to be true. In this respect, the author offers a counterpoint to the conspicuous aestheticism of Oscar Wilde’s contemporaneous The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dick’s trouble begins when he refuses to accept reality, pursuing instead a romantic ideal. ...

Originally published in 1901, East of Suez was Alice Perrin’s first collection of short stories. Although now largely forgotten, Perrin was one of the most successful authors of her day, commanding larger advances than the likes of Arnold Bennett (much to his chagrin, it must be said). Perrin tells stories of illicit love and betrayal against a beautifully-drawn backdrop of the mystical east, interweaving the supernatural with exquisite details of her characters’ lives. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Perrin handles Anglo-Indian relations with great sensitivity, showing equal humanity in her portrayal of powerful British officials and their more humble neighbours. Through her writing, she depicts the social complexity of colonial rule, never resorting to stereotypes or simplistic representations of the people or the landscape. ...