Synopses & Reviews
Westminster, London, June 22, 1836. Crowds are gathering at the Court of Common Pleas. On trial is Caroline Sheridan Norton, a beautiful and clever young woman who had been maneuvered into marrying the Honorable George Norton when she was just nineteen. Ten years older, he is a dull, violent, and controlling lawyer, but Caroline is determined not to be a traditional wife. By her early twenties, Caroline has become a respected poet and songwriter, clever mimic, and outrageous flirt. Her beauty and wit attract many male admirers, including the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. After years of simmering jealousy, George Norton accuses Caroline and the Prime Minister of “criminal conversation” (adultery) precipitating Victorian Englands “scandal of the century.”
In Westminster Hall that day is a young Charles Dickens, who would, just a few months later, fictionalize events as Bardell v. Pickwick in The Pickwick Papers. After a trial lasting twelve hours, the jurys not guilty verdict is immediate, unanimous, and sensational. George is a laughingstock. Angry and humiliated he cuts Caroline off, as was his right under the law, refuses to let her see their three sons, seizes her manuscripts and letters, her clothes and jewels, and leaves her destitute. Knowing she can not change her brutish husbands mind, Caroline resolves to change the law.
Steeped in archival research that draws on more than 1,500 of Carolines personal letters, The Criminal Conversation of Mrs. Norton is the extraordinary story of one womans fight for the rights of women everywhere. For the next thirty years Caroline campaigned for women and battled male-dominated Victorian society, helping to write the Infant Custody Act (1839), and influenced the Matrimonial Causes (Divorce) Act (1857) and the Married Womens Property Act (1870), which gave women a separate legal identity for the first time.
Review
"Lively, entertaining, and filled with rivetingly weird details. . . . Atkinson's book pays tribute to a neglected heroine." —Sunday Times
Review
"Important and definitive, this beautifully written and extremely entertaining book resurrects a nineteenth-century heroine for the twenty-first century." -Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
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“It is a brave book, written with verve and veracity.” —The Times
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"Expertly researched and finely written. . . . Mrs Nortons journey from abused wife to passionate reformer is as moving as it is fascinating, and Atkinsons richly detailed work does her subject the justice she deserves." —BBC History Magazine
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“An impressive biography" and "a robust portrait…of a woman who refused to be circumscribed by the restrictive social mores and legal inequities of her time and place in history.” —Booklist
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“Well-researched” and “recommended for womens studies scholars, legal scholars, and academics.” —Library Journal
Synopsis
A forgotten heroine of the womens rights movement is rescued from obscurity in this biography of Caroline Norton, a respected poet, songwriter, and socialite whose 1836 adultery trial rocked Victorian England. When George Norton accused his wife of having an affair with the British Prime Minister he sparked what was considered “the scandal of the century.” Though she was declared innocent, the humiliated George locked Caroline out of their home, seized her manuscripts, letters, clothes, jewels, and every penny of her earnings, and refused to let her see their three sons. This detailed account of the Norton “criminal conversation” trial sheds vivid light on the desperate position of women in male-dominated Victorian society and chronicles Carolines lifelong campaign to establish legal rights for married and divorced women, allowing them to inherit property, take court action on their own behalf, and in effect establishing them for the first time as full-fledged human beings before the law. Figuring into this fascinating story are Nortons friend and confidante Mary Shelley, longtime admirer Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Queen Victoria, and other literary and royal heavyweights of the day.
Synopsis
Presenting a vivid picture of Suffragette life, this book draws extensively on the little-known but important Suffragette Fellowship Collection of archive photographs, newspapers, personal correspondence, artifacts, and memoirs The strength of this book is its rare images of the Suffragette campaign leading to the outbreak of World War I. It also documents leading personalities in the Suffragette movement, such as Emmeline Pankhurst, Annie Kenney, and Emily Wilding Davison; the behind-the-scenes activities at the Women's Social and Political Union; their public propaganda work; the brilliant set-piece demonstrations; and the escalation of militancy from "pestering the politicians" to burning down buildings and attacking works of art. The book also explores what happened to these incredible women after their war was won and the vote was granted to them.
About the Author
Diane Atkinson holds a Ph.D. in the politics of womens labor and has worked as a lecturer and curator specializing in womens history at the Museum of London. She is the author of Elsie and Mairi Go to War, Funny Girls, Love and Dirt, and Suffragettes in Pictures.