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A review by scribepub
An Unconventional Wife: The Life of Julia Sorell Arnold by Mary Hoban
In An Unconventional Wife, Mary Hoban has given us an inconvenient heroine: a woman hobbled by her times, champing at the bit, going nowhere but telling us everything. Pieced together through impeccable research and told with all the urgency and intrigue of a soap opera, the story of Julia Sorell demands recognition of — and respect for — a woman who would otherwise be lost to history. Utterly charming.
Clare Wright
An exceptional exercise in factual delving and a feat of imaginative sympathy.
Gideon Haigh
A magisterial work of biography, utterly assured in research and style. This compelling and moving book reanimates the lost life of Julia Sorell Arnold, a spirited, independent woman in an age when women were expected to be quiet. With deep insight and empathy Hoban brings to life Julia and Tom’s troublesome marriage. Their passionate but fractious relationship speaks directly to the irascible relations between women and men in our own divisive times. This book is a remarkable achievement by an expert and gifted biographer.
Rod Jones
Hoban has uncovered the story of a woman, admired by many friends and family, who refused to bow to the customs of the day, spoke her mind when others would have kept quiet and stayed true to her faith ... a remarkable life that needed to be told.
Barry Reynolds, Herald Sun
An Unconventional Wife is superbly written, and skilfully draws on a number of diverse sources, compensating for a lamented lack – an intimate diary kept by Julia herself. Mary Hoban has got to the kernel of this story, since she has correctly conceived it as an exercise in the recuperation of women’s history.
Jim Davidson, Australian Book Review
An Unconventional Wife, Mary Hoban’s elegant biography of Julia Sorrell Arnold, who was born in Tasmania in 1826 and died in England 61 years later, challenges traditional notions of biography, examining a woman other writers might have ignored ... An Unconventional Wife performs a worthy act of recovery in lucid prose, revealing an intelligent woman caught up in the struggles and limitations of her time.
David Mason, Weekend Australian
Mary Hoban has bypassed poets and thinkers, churchmen and colonial administrators to create a spirited biography of the ‘‘unknown woman’’, as she calls Julia Sorell Arnold.
Brenda Niall, Sydney Morning Herald
Hoban portrays her as an independently-minded woman at a time when women were expected to conform to their husband’s views.
Andrea Ripper, Courier Mail
An illuminating portrait of a Victorian wife and mother who was rescued from silence ... A sparkling biography and cultural history.
Kirkus Review
This is a wonderful story, told with great clarity. There is compassion too, and you can only imagine that the author is taking great pains to suppress her own anger at the way Victorian society was expected to behave, whether in distant Tasmania or academic Oxford or backwater Dublin. The reader is caught between sympathy for Julia and admiration for her insistence on her dignity.
Frank O’Shea, Tinteán
This is an absorbing book, one I could not put down ... She writes well and fluently, and her prose is a pleasure to read.
Alison Alexander, Tasmanian Historical Research Association’s Papers and Proceedings
Julia’s story is expertly told by Hoban … Through this biography, Hoban challenges the conventional narrative of Julia’s life that positions her as the difficult wife of the sophisticated and scholarly Tom Arnold. She has provided readers with another side to the story, where Julia’s own thoughts and feelings become the focus, and thus reveal a far more complicated picture of their marriage and herself than biographies of Arnold deliver … a page-turning account of an incredible woman.
Hannah Viney, Eras Journal, Monash University
Expertly told … well-researched … Hoban’s writing is engaging. She expertly draws the reader in to Julia’s story and, rather than a dry catalogue of facts, the reader is presented with a page-turning account of an incredible woman.
Hannah Viney, Eras Journal, Monash University
Clare Wright
An exceptional exercise in factual delving and a feat of imaginative sympathy.
Gideon Haigh
A magisterial work of biography, utterly assured in research and style. This compelling and moving book reanimates the lost life of Julia Sorell Arnold, a spirited, independent woman in an age when women were expected to be quiet. With deep insight and empathy Hoban brings to life Julia and Tom’s troublesome marriage. Their passionate but fractious relationship speaks directly to the irascible relations between women and men in our own divisive times. This book is a remarkable achievement by an expert and gifted biographer.
Rod Jones
Hoban has uncovered the story of a woman, admired by many friends and family, who refused to bow to the customs of the day, spoke her mind when others would have kept quiet and stayed true to her faith ... a remarkable life that needed to be told.
Barry Reynolds, Herald Sun
An Unconventional Wife is superbly written, and skilfully draws on a number of diverse sources, compensating for a lamented lack – an intimate diary kept by Julia herself. Mary Hoban has got to the kernel of this story, since she has correctly conceived it as an exercise in the recuperation of women’s history.
Jim Davidson, Australian Book Review
An Unconventional Wife, Mary Hoban’s elegant biography of Julia Sorrell Arnold, who was born in Tasmania in 1826 and died in England 61 years later, challenges traditional notions of biography, examining a woman other writers might have ignored ... An Unconventional Wife performs a worthy act of recovery in lucid prose, revealing an intelligent woman caught up in the struggles and limitations of her time.
David Mason, Weekend Australian
Mary Hoban has bypassed poets and thinkers, churchmen and colonial administrators to create a spirited biography of the ‘‘unknown woman’’, as she calls Julia Sorell Arnold.
Brenda Niall, Sydney Morning Herald
Hoban portrays her as an independently-minded woman at a time when women were expected to conform to their husband’s views.
Andrea Ripper, Courier Mail
An illuminating portrait of a Victorian wife and mother who was rescued from silence ... A sparkling biography and cultural history.
Kirkus Review
This is a wonderful story, told with great clarity. There is compassion too, and you can only imagine that the author is taking great pains to suppress her own anger at the way Victorian society was expected to behave, whether in distant Tasmania or academic Oxford or backwater Dublin. The reader is caught between sympathy for Julia and admiration for her insistence on her dignity.
Frank O’Shea, Tinteán
This is an absorbing book, one I could not put down ... She writes well and fluently, and her prose is a pleasure to read.
Alison Alexander, Tasmanian Historical Research Association’s Papers and Proceedings
Julia’s story is expertly told by Hoban … Through this biography, Hoban challenges the conventional narrative of Julia’s life that positions her as the difficult wife of the sophisticated and scholarly Tom Arnold. She has provided readers with another side to the story, where Julia’s own thoughts and feelings become the focus, and thus reveal a far more complicated picture of their marriage and herself than biographies of Arnold deliver … a page-turning account of an incredible woman.
Hannah Viney, Eras Journal, Monash University
Expertly told … well-researched … Hoban’s writing is engaging. She expertly draws the reader in to Julia’s story and, rather than a dry catalogue of facts, the reader is presented with a page-turning account of an incredible woman.
Hannah Viney, Eras Journal, Monash University