Mrs Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady - Hardcover

Summerscale, Kate

3.15

3,845 ratings by Goodreads

9781408812419: Mrs Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 140881241X ISBN 13: 9781408812419

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012

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In June 1858, soon after the new Court of Divorce began sitting, Henry Oliver Robinson brought a divorce suit on the grounds of his wife's adultery, submitting her diary as evidence. Read aloud in court, the diary was more sensational than anything in contemporary fiction. Kate Summerscale tells the story of romance, scandal, the boundaries of privacy, and a diary in which Isabella Robinson 'seemed to have invited, and lovingly recorded, her own disgrace'.Slightly off-mint.

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Review:

Like her previous book, I was hooked after the first few pages. It's as good as non-fiction could possibly get (Victoria Hislop, Daily Mail)

Extraordinary ... As one would expect from the author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, the material here is handled with confident subtlety. The history goes from the individual to the individual's world with seductive ease. This is a highly considered social history teased ... fascinating ***** (Philippa Gregory Daily Telegraph)

Summerscale strikes non-fiction gold for the third time (Independent on Sunday)

As in the wildly successful The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, the strange tale of Mrs Robinson acts as a whirlpool for all the furious undercurrents of an era. Summerscale's brilliance lies not only in recognising the power of a particular story, but in charting, with beautiful precision, its strange echoes and reverberations ***** (Craig Brown Mail on Sunday 'Book of the Week')

You'll find Fifty Shades of Grey on beaches everywhere ... but the story of Mrs Robinson deserves a place on summer reading lists. She is pretty hot stuff (Boston Globe)

A masterful retelling of a true Victorian scandal ... a breathtaking achievement ... Summerscale's account of this court case is faultless; her seemingly inexhaustible capacity for research renders what could be tedious and vividly dry alive ... I'm all admiration: she has turned a sepia photograph, curling and tattered, into a film that runs through the mind in glorious and unimpeachable Technicolor (Rachel Cooke Observer)

Book of the week ... a winning blend of biography and courtroom drama - and an important slice of social history ... an absorbing tale, admirably told by a mistress of her craft (Valerie Grove The Times)

Grippingly suspenseful ... Mrs Robinson's Disgrace displays a scalpel-sharp investigative mind, and it vividly conveys the immediate surroundings of the case, from the stench of the polluted Thames infiltrating Westminster Hall to the degradations of Victorian marriage (John Carey Sunday Times)

As a guide to mid-Victorian cultural life ... Summerscale is simply superb, and she sets a fine example of what cultural history can do (Guardian)

Told with dazzling detail and exquisite tenderness, this non-fiction tale reads like a perfect novel (Elle)

Book Description:

From the number one bestselling, multi-award-winning author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher comes a brand new true story of Victorian scandal

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