One Soul We Divided: A Critical Edition of the Diary of Michael Field - Hardcover

Field, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691208115 ISBN 13: 9780691208114

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2024

Synopsis

The first book-length selection from the extraordinary unpublished diary of the late-Victorian writer “Michael Field”―the pen name of two female coauthors and romantic partners

Michael Field was known to late-Victorian readers as a superb poet and playwright―until Robert Browning let slip Field’s secret identity: in fact, “Michael Field” was a pseudonym for Katharine Bradley (1846–1914) and Edith Cooper (1862–1913), who were lovers, a devoted couple, and aunt and niece. For thirty years, they kept a joint diary titled Works and Days that eventually reached almost 10,000 pages. One Soul We Divided is the first critical edition of selections from this remarkable unpublished work.

A fascinating personal and literary experiment, the diary tells the extraordinary story of the love, art, ambitions, and domestic life of a queer couple in fin de siècle London. It also tells vivid firsthand stories of the literary and artistic worlds Bradley and Cooper inhabited and of their encounters with such celebrities as Browning, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Aubrey Beardsley, and Bernard Berenson. Carolyn Dever provides essential context, including explanatory notes, a cast of characters, a family tree, and a timeline.

An unforgettable portrait of two writers and their unexpected romantic, literary, and artistic marriage, One Soul We Divided rewrites what we think we know about Victorian women, intimacy, and sexuality.

About this title

About the Author

Carolyn Dever is professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College. Her books include Chains of Love and Beauty: The Diary of Michael Field (Princeton) and Death and the Mother from Dickens to Freud: Victorian Fiction and the Anxiety of Origins.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691208115
• ISBN 13: 9780691208114
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 360
• Editor: Dever Carolyn