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whatcarlaread's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
clgenert's review
3.0
I really wanted to love this book. The author has such an interesting voice, painting her stories in an edgy, almost harsh tone. Her characters are complex and usually quite flawed, and they can be a joy to loathe. Her approach of spinning fascinating tales around actual events lifted from media accounts is compelling but this one didn’t hook me. I found it easy to put down and hard to pick up again. Maybe it was me.
artemismatchalatte's review
4.0
I just finished reading Emma Donoghue’s The Sealed Letter for my novels class at university. This is probably something I would have read on my own since it’s 19th Century England and has some kind of LGBT element to it. This is an elaborate recreation of the events leading up to the 1864 divorce case of Admiral Henry Codrington vs. his wife Helen Codrington which rocked Victorian England with scandal. The story is told from three perspectives; Helen, Henry (called Harry in the book), and Emily Faithfull (called Fido by Helen). Poor Fido is a woman who absolutely adores Helen while Helen doesn’t seem to have much regard for anyone except herself and her children. They had a friendship in the recent past that was dropped when Helen and Harry moved to Malta.
Helen is the most manipulative person you can imagine. She manipulates her friends and lovers alike because that’s arguably the only power an upper class woman in Victorian England had. Still, I felt quite terrible for Fido because she is constantly duped by Helen’s words. Because she loves Helen so much, she wants to believe in her friends’ innocence even when it’s plainly clear that her friend is far from innocent. Helen has had at least two extramarital affairs with other military officers. Harry finally catches her when she does not come when asked to look after her daughter who suddenly fell ill. While Helen doesn’t care much for Harry, she loves her daughters more than anyone else in the world. This is how Harry knows that Helen was not where she claimed to be (she uses Fido’s name to try to cover her lie but Harry sees through her) and catches her in her lie.
Once Harry realizes that Helen has been cheating on him, he’s devastated. He still loved her even though she never seemed to like him. He is persuaded by his awful busybody neighbor to divorce Helen to make her pay for cheating on him. He threatens Helen with divorce and takes their daughters away, to devastate her (in Victorian England the father almost always had legal custody of the children in a dispute between parents unless he was deemed unfit). She is devastated and runs to Fido to help her but that further supports Harry’s claim that Helen and Fido are lovers (as well as Helen’s having cheated on him with two military officers- neither of whom have to answer for their affairs with Helen). In case anyone is wondering, the sealed letter of the title is itself both a brilliant metaphor for Victorian Lesbian relationships and a literal object that is used as evidence in the court case.
I’m not going to spoil the ending because I think this book is worth the read (4.5 stars from me!) if you are interested in any of the following; court case dramas, Victorian England, romance, drama, betrayal, historical fiction, or stories with lesbian and bisexual female characters. This will give you a realistic idea of what a Victorian divorce case would have been like, with all the theatric drama included. That alone was interesting, though it makes me incredibly grateful to be a woman in the modern era. Divorce was an incredibly shameful thing for a woman; the double standards are rampant in this book as you’ll see with pretty much every aspect of the Codrington case.
Since book is based on a real court case, you can find more on both Emily Faithfull and Henry Codrington but there is much less information on Helen Codrington available online (though if you look on their pages, this will pretty much spoil the story).
Triggers: rape (mentioned as a suggested past event in the story, and possible related PTSD) and homophobia (but this was probably expected since the Victorians weren’t the most accepting people)
Helen is the most manipulative person you can imagine. She manipulates her friends and lovers alike because that’s arguably the only power an upper class woman in Victorian England had. Still, I felt quite terrible for Fido because she is constantly duped by Helen’s words. Because she loves Helen so much, she wants to believe in her friends’ innocence even when it’s plainly clear that her friend is far from innocent. Helen has had at least two extramarital affairs with other military officers. Harry finally catches her when she does not come when asked to look after her daughter who suddenly fell ill. While Helen doesn’t care much for Harry, she loves her daughters more than anyone else in the world. This is how Harry knows that Helen was not where she claimed to be (she uses Fido’s name to try to cover her lie but Harry sees through her) and catches her in her lie.
Once Harry realizes that Helen has been cheating on him, he’s devastated. He still loved her even though she never seemed to like him. He is persuaded by his awful busybody neighbor to divorce Helen to make her pay for cheating on him. He threatens Helen with divorce and takes their daughters away, to devastate her (in Victorian England the father almost always had legal custody of the children in a dispute between parents unless he was deemed unfit). She is devastated and runs to Fido to help her but that further supports Harry’s claim that Helen and Fido are lovers (as well as Helen’s having cheated on him with two military officers- neither of whom have to answer for their affairs with Helen). In case anyone is wondering, the sealed letter of the title is itself both a brilliant metaphor for Victorian Lesbian relationships and a literal object that is used as evidence in the court case.
I’m not going to spoil the ending because I think this book is worth the read (4.5 stars from me!) if you are interested in any of the following; court case dramas, Victorian England, romance, drama, betrayal, historical fiction, or stories with lesbian and bisexual female characters. This will give you a realistic idea of what a Victorian divorce case would have been like, with all the theatric drama included. That alone was interesting, though it makes me incredibly grateful to be a woman in the modern era. Divorce was an incredibly shameful thing for a woman; the double standards are rampant in this book as you’ll see with pretty much every aspect of the Codrington case.
Since book is based on a real court case, you can find more on both Emily Faithfull and Henry Codrington but there is much less information on Helen Codrington available online (though if you look on their pages, this will pretty much spoil the story).
Triggers: rape (mentioned as a suggested past event in the story, and possible related PTSD) and homophobia (but this was probably expected since the Victorians weren’t the most accepting people)
chgoange's review
2.0
Way to melodramatic for my tastes and I didn't find myself liking any of the characters...all of whom were really pretty darn pathetic.
ninarg's review
3.0
I've wanted to read Emma Donoghue for a while, having heard so much good about her novels. I've had "Pull of the Stars" on hold at the library for months now, "The Wonder" as well, and then suddenly I came across this one that I'd never heard of before: "The Sealed Letter." Curious about the author, I decided to give it a try.
It started out excellent with all the elements you need to hook this reader: A strong, sympathetic, independent business-woman (Fido Faithfull), feminists fighting the women's Cause, all set in Victorian London. I was in. Enters Helen Codrington, a woman from Fido's past who has a lot in common with Thackeray's Becky Sharp, and the drama begins.
Only the drama went in a different direction than I'd expected. I would have liked to delve into the printing press, follow Fido and her fellow Woman-ists fighting the Cause, participating in meetings, trying to make something important of their magazine while fighting discrimination and sabotage. Instead, the focus of this book is on the divorce trial between Harry and Helen Codrington. The problem is that as a reader I already have all the answers so there's not much tension in the trial, and the verdict isn't a surprise. My main interest in the trial was how it affected Fido and her position in the Cause, but while Donoghue does show this it felt too brief to me. I would have liked more of Fido's internal struggle between on the one side her life-work with the Cause and the printing press and on the other her loyalty to Helen and how she craves that friendship (and what more could come of it.)
The star of the show is definitely Helen Codrington. Lying, selfish, manipulating Helen, loved by all the men (Helen of Troy, anyone?), she worms her way back into kind, naive, trusting Fido's good graces without much effort and takes full advantage of that.
It's a good read and I often found it hard to put down. A little more feminist movement, a little less trial and this would have been included in my "best books of the year." As it is, it's just below that group, very close to getting in. It's a very, very good read and I will definitely read more Donoghue, as soon as her novels become available at the library.
It started out excellent with all the elements you need to hook this reader: A strong, sympathetic, independent business-woman (Fido Faithfull), feminists fighting the women's Cause, all set in Victorian London. I was in. Enters Helen Codrington, a woman from Fido's past who has a lot in common with Thackeray's Becky Sharp, and the drama begins.
Only the drama went in a different direction than I'd expected. I would have liked to delve into the printing press, follow Fido and her fellow Woman-ists fighting the Cause, participating in meetings, trying to make something important of their magazine while fighting discrimination and sabotage. Instead, the focus of this book is on the divorce trial between Harry and Helen Codrington. The problem is that as a reader I already have all the answers so there's not much tension in the trial, and the verdict isn't a surprise. My main interest in the trial was how it affected Fido and her position in the Cause, but while Donoghue does show this it felt too brief to me. I would have liked more of Fido's internal struggle between on the one side her life-work with the Cause and the printing press and on the other her loyalty to Helen and how she craves that friendship (and what more could come of it.)
The star of the show is definitely Helen Codrington. Lying, selfish, manipulating Helen, loved by all the men (Helen of Troy, anyone?), she worms her way back into kind, naive, trusting Fido's good graces without much effort and takes full advantage of that.
It's a good read and I often found it hard to put down. A little more feminist movement, a little less trial and this would have been included in my "best books of the year." As it is, it's just below that group, very close to getting in. It's a very, very good read and I will definitely read more Donoghue, as soon as her novels become available at the library.
jeninenine's review against another edition
4.0
Maybe a little lower in stars but I was very grabbed by the book which was a welcome sensation.