The Sealed Letter

Although it doesn't pack the emotional wallop of  Room: A Novel  or  Slammerkin , "The Sealed Letter" is another fine novel by Emma Donoghue. It's a historical potboiler focusing on a scandalous divorce case in 1860s London. There are four central characters - the wife, her lover, her friend and the cuckolded husband - whose motives will keep you guessing until (and even after) the climactic courtroom scene.Like all of Donoghue's work, "The Sealed Letter" has clever plotting and sharp dialogue. Her usually dynamic pacing is off here, however, and parts of the book drag. The writing could have been tightened up and the story completed in less than its 389 pages. The way Donoghue structures her novels is very interesting. This one is divided into chapters named for legal terms related to the development and adjudication of the divorce case: "Prima Facie," "Feme Covert," "Actus Reus," "Subpoena," "Counterclaim," etc. (All are translated and explained.) In addition to the intriguing characters and drama, Donoghue uses the story to highlight the precarious legal status of women at the time and the emerging movement for women's education and employment. She can always be depended on for a great story with added layers of social and historical perspective. "The Sealed Letter" is not Donoghue's best, but I thought it was pretty good.

This is an excellent book about women's rights in the middle 1800's in England. It's based on true events and it explores two women's relationship with each other, as well as exploring the attitude toward women in this era. The author has done a tremendous amount of research, and the result is a book that is factual as well as entertaining.I have read other books by this author and they have been as good as this one. I highly recommend this book, as well as others by Dr. Donoghue.

There is no doubt that divorce is a blame game at the heart of it. Nor is there any doubt that there is a single person in this country who hasn't had experience with divorce in some way-either personal experience or from their own or their parent's divorcing or friends, family members or neighbors. Hey, we even get to participate vicariously in celebrity divorces these days. Since divorce was first legalized hundreds of years ago it has morphed from a rare and tragic event to just another method of mass entertainment and ultimately a way to feel superior to those who failed at what is culturally viewed as one of the most important inter-personal relationships.It's not all that rare to read about divorce in historical fiction, especially because of the huge amount of fiction focused on the Tudors. But it is rare to get a truly complete description of the historical process, which obviously differs greatly from today's proceedings. And that is exactly what "The Sealed Letter" is. A complete description of the divorce process as it was in 1864. The novel is even arranged in legal terms that describe each one of the processes leading to the proceedings being initiated and the circus that followed them.This book tells the story of an extremely notorious divorce in English history that captured the attention of the country. Containing multiple allegations of adultery, neglect, alienation of affection, sex in public, attempted rape of a drugged, innocent virgin, and even allusions to lesbianism and circumstances that bear remarkable similarity to the impeachment case against President Clinton. I have no doubts that were the case of Harry Codrington versus Helen Codrington happening today that it would generate just as much interests.But it wasn't the actual divorce case that made this novel so interesting-especially to me. It was the characters and the time period. The book is divided up in third person narrative between the three main players in the divorce (in actuality the divorce has three or four parties to it but one of them never appears in the book and one never narrates) Harry, Helen and Emily "Fido" Faithfull. Seven years before our story begins these three lived under the same roof with Fido, as Helen's best friend, often mediating to keep the troubled and obviously miss-matched marriage together. But as Harry was a navy man the Codrington's were posted abroad and Helen and Fido lost touch.Only to re-connect later on a London street, almost as if by magic. The two attribute their lack of communication to a poor postal system and pick up where they left off-with one major difference-Helen has a constant tagalong now, a handsome young man Colonel David Anderson. It soon becomes apparent to Fido that something is going on between them and her supposedly bosom friend is being less than honest about it.But as Helen's true personality and secrets unfold all three are drawn into the strange divorce process the Victorians used. What follows is fascinating not only from a historical perspective about gender politics but as a measuring stick to how well you can ever truly know your friends, your spouse...and how fragile trust, bonds and vows really are.Unlike Emma Donoghue's other historical novels  Slammerkin  and  Life Mask , "The Sealed Letter" only implies sexuality and is in no way descriptive of lesbianism, sex or violence. But this newer demur writing style takes nothing away from the story (though I have to say I found "Life Mask" more interesting because of its larger scope) and this book will be joining the above mentioned and  Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins  on my bookshelf.Four point five stars.And if you want more about the historical divorce process then  Stealing Athena: A Novel  is a good place to find some more non-Tudor legal action-though it is far from the main focus of the book.

I’m really not sure where I stand with Emma Donoghue, I loved Slammerkin and Room but really didn’t enjoy Frog Music. I haven’t read any of her others but I thought I’d give The Sealed Letter a go as I’d seen some great reviews.The story is set in London in 1864 and we follow Helen Codrington (a wife and mother, born and bred abroad, who craves some excitement in her life) and Emily ‘Fido’ Faithfull (a crusader for women’s rights and an unlikely friend for Helen) as they navigate through the fallout of Helen’s affairs in a very public way. It’s really difficult for us to imagine today but divorce was much more scandalous and socially crippling in 1864 and it’s strange that the two people divorcing were not actually allowed to give evidence in court.The characters in the book were well written and the storyline was easy to follow but my only negative comment would really be that it was a bit slow and boring. I felt like the whole book was dragged out a lot longer than it needed to be and I found myself getting a bit bored with some of the situations and conversations.I didn’t love this book but I didn’t hate it, I just ended up feeling a bit ‘meh’ about it and it’s not convinced me to read any other of Emma Donoghue’s books.

This is a fictionalised account of a real-life Victorian sexual scandal: the Codrington adultery and divorce case of 1864. Concerned with issues of female sexuality, patriarchal marriage, and the legal control of women, this is set against a background of first wave feminism (`womanism', as it's called here) and Victorian mores.This isn't a sensational or melodramatic read, it's far more intelligent than that and is based on Donoghue's meticulous archival research of the actual case. The publicity blurb and press reviews are quite misleading, so anyone expecting a frothy romp or something like  The Crimson Petal and the White  or  Fingersmith  should definitely think again.I found the beginning of this book difficult to get into: it feels very mannered with its present tense style and the rather artificial speech rhythms of the characters. That soon wore off, however, and the book settled down into what becomes an utterly engrossing read of lies, self-deception, and legal trickery.There's a nice kind of moral ambiguity about this tale that I liked: no-one comes off particularly well, and no-one can be said to be the hero or heroine of the book. If you want a book where you can root for the hero and boo the villains, this certainly isn't it.So after a slightly shaky start this became completely compelling - recommended. The Crimson Petal and the WhiteFingersmith

This book is set in the 1860s and is based on a real life prominent divorce case that set London buzzing at the time. It tells the story of Helen Codrington, unhappily married to an older man, she embarks on an affair with an army officer. She confides in her old friend Emily 'Fido' Faithfull, proprietor of a feminist printing press and one of the pioneers of the suffragette movement. It seems Fido is in love with Helen and would do anything to help and protect her but she also has staunch moral values and is upset at being used by Helen to assist in her dalliances with her lover.To begin with, this book annoyed me intensely. I found the dialogue stilted and the overall feel of the novel wasn't authentically Victorian to me. The first quarter of the book shows Fido and Helen becoming reacquainted after a number of years and I honestly wanted to give up on the book as I found it so unconvincing. As I never give up on books I persevered and I'm glad I did as the story picked up once Helen was found out and the divorce proceedings began. The title of the book refers to a sealed letter produced in the trial, the contents of which would be crucial to the outcome if revealed.Overall this is a good read but I had a number of issues with it. The novel attempts to show how biased the divorce courts were against women in the 19th century. Helen stood to lose all access to her two young daughters, devastating for any mother. But, in this case, it was hard to sympathise with Helen. She brought a lot of her problems on herself, she manipulated people and was cold towards her husband. Henry Codrington was not a bad man, in fact he was fairly typical of men of his rank at the time, and he was hurt and embarrassed by the breakdown of his marriage.This book is one of Donoghue's older novels but was re-released following the success of Room. It is completely different to Room in subject matter and style but eventually builds up to be a good read after a slow and irritating start.

I began reading this book with very few expectations other than piqued curiosity. I found it to be delightfully engaging; it tells of the dichotomy between emotionally-driven flawed human behaviour and the stiff societal propriety of the upper middle classes in nineteenth century London. The plot was delightfully twisty and I found myself audibly reacting multiple times along the way (mostly out of either surprise or frustration!).I could not say that this book has had a particularly significant or profound effect on me, as some others have, but perhaps it was not intended to do that. What I can say is that reading it was an enjoyable experience and I am glad for having done so.

The early feminist stuff can get a bit tedious in this book, which is based on a real- life divorce scandal. I know these women were important but I am not sure if they didn't slow down, or pad out, what could have been a shorter, tighter book. I think we know how difficult it was for women to escape an unhappy marriage during Victorian times and earlier. ( Wilkie Collins covered it well and contemporaneously) and Wendy Moore's book about Britain's worst husband is superb.