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A review by kiwiflora
The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue
3.0
Before she wrote the riveting 'Room', this Irish author wrote 'The Sealed Letter'. And it couldn't be more different from 'Room'. Based on an actual event and real people, this story is about three individuals in Victorian London who, to their peril, find themselves up against the Establishment, fighting for their honour and good names.
Vice-Admiral Harry Codrington is a career navy man from a family with a sterling military pedigree. He is married to the much younger beautiful and enchanting Helen, with whom he has had two young daughters. Recently returned to London from a posting in Malta, both Harry and Helen are not finding the return to the more restrained and proper society of London very easy. By chance, Helen one day literally runs into her former confidante and companion Miss Emily Faithfull. Fido, as she is known, is an unmarried woman, late twenties, who is a true blue feminist, involved in various causes, as well as being the owner/manager of a successful printing business.
Suddenly Fido finds herself drawn back into the unhappy marriage of Harry and Helen, and the disastrous fall out that results from Helen's adulterous affairs. As befits the mores of the time, there is a huge scandal, and a high profile court case as Harry petitions to divorce his wife. As well as producing the usual evidence gathered by a private detective and bizarrely a dress with a suggestive stain on it (this actually happened - move over Bill Clinton), he also tries to discredit Helen by bringing into question the true nature of the friendship between the two women. Back then, if the woman can be proved to be at fault, as well as being tarnished with the label 'divorcee' she also lost all custody, rights to money, marital property, care and any involvement at all with her children - she may as well be dead. No doubt this kept many marriages together. But for someone like Fido, fiercely committed to the rights of women, dealing with this and the rumours swirling around, all placed her between a rock and a hard place.
The actual trial and the subsequent mind games don't occur till the last third of the book. So the majority of the book is the background to the situation, the setting up of the relationships, the careful manipulations. It is so well done and so well thought out that by the time of the trial, we realise that all three people are as much victims of each other as well as of the society they live in. Who would want to live in Victorian England? The poor had a terrible time - Dickens - but the rich or richer, especially if female, didn't really have a much better time.
Although based on fact and real people, the author seems to have created her own versions of Harry, Helen and Fido. No doubt they bear some resemblance to the real people, but they may also enable her to highlight the hypocrisy of the times, as well as the dangerous path many women trod, whether they were unhappily married mothers or independent unmarried businesswomen. Were you allowed to be either way back then? I'm just glad that I was born one hundred plus years later!
Vice-Admiral Harry Codrington is a career navy man from a family with a sterling military pedigree. He is married to the much younger beautiful and enchanting Helen, with whom he has had two young daughters. Recently returned to London from a posting in Malta, both Harry and Helen are not finding the return to the more restrained and proper society of London very easy. By chance, Helen one day literally runs into her former confidante and companion Miss Emily Faithfull. Fido, as she is known, is an unmarried woman, late twenties, who is a true blue feminist, involved in various causes, as well as being the owner/manager of a successful printing business.
Suddenly Fido finds herself drawn back into the unhappy marriage of Harry and Helen, and the disastrous fall out that results from Helen's adulterous affairs. As befits the mores of the time, there is a huge scandal, and a high profile court case as Harry petitions to divorce his wife. As well as producing the usual evidence gathered by a private detective and bizarrely a dress with a suggestive stain on it (this actually happened - move over Bill Clinton), he also tries to discredit Helen by bringing into question the true nature of the friendship between the two women. Back then, if the woman can be proved to be at fault, as well as being tarnished with the label 'divorcee' she also lost all custody, rights to money, marital property, care and any involvement at all with her children - she may as well be dead. No doubt this kept many marriages together. But for someone like Fido, fiercely committed to the rights of women, dealing with this and the rumours swirling around, all placed her between a rock and a hard place.
The actual trial and the subsequent mind games don't occur till the last third of the book. So the majority of the book is the background to the situation, the setting up of the relationships, the careful manipulations. It is so well done and so well thought out that by the time of the trial, we realise that all three people are as much victims of each other as well as of the society they live in. Who would want to live in Victorian England? The poor had a terrible time - Dickens - but the rich or richer, especially if female, didn't really have a much better time.
Although based on fact and real people, the author seems to have created her own versions of Harry, Helen and Fido. No doubt they bear some resemblance to the real people, but they may also enable her to highlight the hypocrisy of the times, as well as the dangerous path many women trod, whether they were unhappily married mothers or independent unmarried businesswomen. Were you allowed to be either way back then? I'm just glad that I was born one hundred plus years later!