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Published May 2022
304 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
Award-winning historian Antonia Fraser brilliantly portrays a courageous and compassionate woman who refused to be curbed by the personal and political constraints of her time.
Caroline Norton dazzled nineteenth-century society with her vivacity, her intelligence, her poetry, and in her role as an artist's muse. After her marriage in 1828 to the MP George Norton, she continued to attract friends and admirers to her salon in Westminster, which included the young Disraeli. Most prominent among her admirers was the widowed Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.
Racked with jealousy, George Norton took the Prime Minister to court, suing him for damages on account of his 'Criminal Conversation' (adultery) with Caroline. A dramatic trial followed. Despite the unexpected and sensational result—acquittal—Norton was still able to legally deny Caroline access to her three children, all under seven. He also claimed her income as an author for himself, since the copyrights of a married woman belonged to her husband.
Yet Caroline refused to despair. Beset by the personal cruelties perpetrated by her husband and a society whose rules were set against her, she chose to fight, not surrender. She channeled her energies in an area of much-needed reform: the rights of a married woman and specifically those of a mother. Over the next few years she campaigned tirelessly, achieving her first landmark victory with the Infant Custody Act of 1839. Provisions which are now taken for granted, such as the right of a mother to have access to her own children, owe much to Caroline, who was determined to secure justice for women at all levels of society from the privileged to the dispossessed.
"Esteemed historian Fraser, who has written biographies of prominent women, such as Mary, Queen of Scots, and Marie Antoinette, turns her eye to the lesser-known yet impactful Caroline Norton, whose very public divorce turned her into a crusader for women's rights in nineteenth-century England. Enlightening and inspiring." - Booklist (starred review)
"[A]n informative biography...Fraser's vivid character sketches and incisive analysis of legal, political, and rhetorical matters result in a winning study of an indefatigable crusader who turned a personal tragedy into a public triumph." - Publishers Weekly
"This engagingly written, rigorously researched book will appeal to both feminist historians and readers who enjoy well-crafted portraits of historical figures who deserve more attention. An intelligently illuminating biography and cultural history." - Kirkus Reviews
"Fraser's is a spirited book, particularly moving on Norton's old age. It is impressive to see one of our most important intellectual figures turning her mind to this remarkable woman from an earlier, different and not so different era." - The Guardian (UK)
"Fraser's book is the first to emphasize what a modern figure Norton is, portraying her not as a hapless victim but as a working mother and bestselling writer who refused to submit to what can only be called the patriarchy. Fraser is surely right to call her a nineteenth-century heroine." - The Sunday Times (UK)
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Since 1969 Antonia Fraser has written nine acclaimed historical works which have been international best-sellers. She began with Mary Queen of Scots (1969) and followed it with Cromwell: Our Chief of Men (1973) and Charles II (1979). Three books featuring women's history came next: The Weaker Vessel; Woman's Lot in the Seventeenth Century (1984); The Warrior Queens (1988) and The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1992). A study in religious extremism, The Gunpowder Plot: Terror And Faith in 1605 (1996) was followed by two books set at the court of Versailles: Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001) and Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (2006).
Antonia Fraser has also written eight crime novels and two books of short stories featuring Jemima Shore Investigator. ...
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