So far this year I've finished only one very slim, very short (it was actually abridged from a larger work) nonfiction book. I love nonfiction, but I'm a slow nonfiction reader and always feel like I need to spend quality time with it, and when my reading comes in fits and starts that means I don't tend to pick up a nonfiction book very often. At least not lately. I'm not sure where I came across Chloe Schama's Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of a Marriage, a Trial, and a Self-Made Woman, but the premise attracted me so much I requested a review copy from the publisher. As they kindly sent me one, I've settled down to start reading. The book is based on a true Victorian case of a clandestine marriage that was later denied when the man left to marry another woman. The trial caused quite a scandal and Wilkie Collins even based one of his books on it. The woman is something of a feminist heroine as she went on to lead quite an independent life.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's start at the beginning.
"For Theresa Longworth and William Charles Yelverton, the 1850s would be consumed by their romance, the 1860s by its unraveling. The public disintegration of their relationship before the courts of Ireland, Scotland, and England would bring to the forefront several of the Victorian era's most disconcerting matters: the inadequacies of female education and upbringing, the struggles of and prejudice against single women, the inequalities of marriage and marital law. When the story became known, Theresa and Yelverton became unwitting emblems of the turmoil of their era at the same time that they evoked timeless fears and fascinations: the fantasy of infatuation, the grip of obsession, the plight of unrequited love, the despair of abandonment. They were ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary affair, forced to deal with the consequences of fame and notoriety, and forcing contemporary society to confront some of its most unsettling preoccupations."
This sounds fascinating and as this is another slim volume I think I might even manage to read it fairly quickly. Not so long ago I did another teaser of a different nonfiction book, which I have not forgotten and it sits patiently by my bedside. Yesterday I mentioned I had to juggle a few books, and that was one of them. Hopefully it will get shuffled back in soon, as I have lots of nonfiction reading to catch up on.