Fiction, Fiction Subjects

Lady's Maid

Name: Lady's Maid
Author: Margaret Forster
ISBN: 9780449907153

by Margaret Forster

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Overview

"Absorbing...Heartbreaking...Forster paints a vivid picture of class, station, hypocrisy and survival in Victorian society....Grips the reader's imagination on every page."
-- SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE She was Elizabeth Barrett's lady's maid. But "Wilson" was more than that. She was a confidante, friend and conspirator in Elizabeth's forbidden romance with Robert Browning. Wilson stayed with Elizabeth for sixteen years, through every trial and crisis, and when Wilson's affairs took a dramatic turn she expected the same loyalty from Elizabeth....

One of history's great love stories--that of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning--makes for a magnificent historical novel: a book that evokes an era as it creates a character. Shy but sturdy Lily was more than just a lady's maid to the housebound Elizabeth Barrett; her devotion turned almost to obsession.

Synopsis

"Absorbing...Heartbreaking...Forster paints a vivid picture of class, station, hypocrisy and survival in Victorian society....Grips the reader's imagination on every page."
— SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE She was Elizabeth Barrett's lady's maid. But "Wilson" was more than that. She was a confidante, friend and conspirator in Elizabeth's forbidden romance with Robert Browning. Wilson stayed with Elizabeth for sixteen years, through every trial and crisis, and when Wilson's affairs took a dramatic turn she expected the same loyalty from Elizabeth....

Publishers Weekly

Elizabeth Wilson, maid to Elizabeth Barrett, witnesses with ambivalence her sickly but charismatic mistress's affair with Robert Browning. This example of top-drawer historical fiction was a BOMC main selection in cloth. (May)

About the Author, Margaret Forster

MARGARET FORSTER was born in Carlisle in 1938. She is the author of bestselling memoirs, Hidden Lives and Precious Lives, acclaimed biographies of Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and of many successful novels, such as Lady's Maid, Private Papers and most recently Diary of an Ordinary Woman.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Library Journal

Until Wilson appeared, it seemed impossible to the agonizingly sensitive and delicate Elizabeth Barrett that anyone could replace the beloved Crow, who had deserted her mistress to marry a baker. As retiring as her new mistress and adept at ministering to the sick, the new maid soon establishes herself as the invalid poetess's defender and companion, even accompanying her in her elopement with Robert Browning. Thus begins an intense relationship that is to become the burden and support of each of their lives. Forster brilliantly explores the uneasy intimacy between mistress and servant, working-class girl and educated lady of leisure to produce a compelling character study and an engrossing novel of the colorful Browning menage. This London Times best seller is highly recommended. --Cynthia Johnson Whealler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.