Scan barcode
mkwojcie's review
2.0
"These objectless, luxurious days of hers weighed on her like imprisonment or spiritual death; and her soul cried out for the freer air of human sympathy and work, of even suffering, as a relief from the cloying sweetness of the present time."
From a writer infamous for her later anti-feminist caricatures, this novel was an unexpected source of ruminations on the toxicity of possessive love and domestic isolation, and the value of work, independence, and a larger social life for women. It was also blatantly white supremacist and eugenicist in its representation of one of the few women of color characters I've come across in Victorian popular fiction (and in its genetic inheritance plots overall). It was incredibly useful for my dissertation (and likely would be worthwhile for other scholars/enthusiasts of the period's culture and history), but I wouldn't recommend it for pleasure reading!
From a writer infamous for her later anti-feminist caricatures, this novel was an unexpected source of ruminations on the toxicity of possessive love and domestic isolation, and the value of work, independence, and a larger social life for women. It was also blatantly white supremacist and eugenicist in its representation of one of the few women of color characters I've come across in Victorian popular fiction (and in its genetic inheritance plots overall). It was incredibly useful for my dissertation (and likely would be worthwhile for other scholars/enthusiasts of the period's culture and history), but I wouldn't recommend it for pleasure reading!
More...