This exceedingly well-researched biography paints a clear picture of the life of both women in the theatre, and of those who dared try to exist outside its confines.
But, actually, that is not entirely true as it was the likes of Dickens and his mates who strove to paint pretty little dovecotes in which to imprison their ideal woman, keeping her saintly, pure, out of politics, art, and certainly not allow her any agency of her own.
Trollope, of the Anthony variety, was brother-in-law to two or more such females of the species who had intellect, ability for writing, journalism, languages, sciences, and yet...
And yet they died in poverty.
They always die in poverty.
Languishing in the dust of disinterest and ignorance these difficult women, who will not fit neatly or quietly in those pretty prisons, await to be discovered decades or centuries after the male has sated his fill of publicity, after the male ego has been patted enough to silence his fangirls for a couple of years.
These women are never promoted by these males, these so-called bastions of literature who have been studied endlessly in secondary schools, in books where they paint women as less than males.
And we wonder why there is War on Women...!
Charles Dickens was dodgy AF.
Giving the bugger serious side-eye re his wife's sister...well, I should say "sisterS".
Women in his books are never nice, normal, independent, intelligent people - they are always "less", sex-worker Nancy in Oliver Twist, Oliver's mother herself a fallen saint, Great Expectations, I mean to say!
And let's not forget the statement that his poor, long-suffering wife was 'insane' when he decided to have his mid-life crisis but wanted to keep the good PR rolling along.
Remind me again - exactly WHY do we think these 'masters' of literature are the best for our kids to study before they venture into adulthood?
My takeaway review -
A MUCH OLDER MARRIED wealthy bloke got his own way by beginning a sexual relationship with a TEENAGER whose family consisted of a widowed mother, 2 sisters and NO INCOME.
