The Sealed Letter Pdf Summary Reviews By Emma Donoghue

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The Sealed Letter Pdf Summary

Miss Emily “Fido” Faithfull is a “woman of business” and a spinster pioneer in the British women’s movement, independent of mind but naively trusting of heart. Distracted from her cause by the sudden return of her once-dear friend, the unhappily wed Helen Codrington, Fido is swept up in the intimate details of Helen’s failing marriage and obsessive affair with a young army officer. What begins as a loyal effort to help a friend explodes into a courtroom drama that rivals the Clinton affair –complete with stained clothing, accusations of adultery, counterclaims of rape, and a mysterious letter that could destroy more than one life.

Based on a scandalous divorce case that gripped England in 1864, The Sealed Letter is a riveting, provocative drama of friends, lovers, and divorce, Victorian style.

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The Sealed Letter Review

Lilly Flora

5.0 out of 5 stars (4.5 stars) A more demur style from Donoghue and a smaller scope but a fasinating historical tale of trust and divorce

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2008

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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.

Keith Fahey

5.0 out of 5 stars Thanks, Monica’s Book Club

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2014

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My friend Monica belongs to a book club. She told me they had just read “The Sealed Letter” by Emma Donoghue — no details, just the title. Curious, I bought the book, yet wondered if it was wise to buy a novel with so little information.

By page 10, when Helen speaks of her “longing to descend into Hades,” I knew this single phrase was worth my investment. The epic descent has long intrigued me, and I was now willing to follow Donoghue wherever she led me: a surface story that carries me on, yet also hints great wonders beneath the surface. If some readers don’t want to be bothered with classic allusions, Donoghue deals with them lightly enough that they can be ignored, while other readers sit up more attentively, increasingly sure they’re in the hands of a master.

The setting is 1864, and Helen is speaking figuratively of taking the world’s first subway in London (“the Underground Railway”), and her allusion both suggests a character who demands attention, and a writer who knows how to transport us to surprising destinations.

After some years Helen has just had a “chance” meeting with former friend Fido, and soon makes her Hadean allusion. A few pages on she cites the one Italian line she knows from Dante, which Fido translates as “woken in a dark wood” (p. 28). They’re referring to one of the most quoted lines in all literature, the opening to Dante’s “Inferno.” As I tend to recall one translation: “Midway this life we’re bound upon, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, the right road wholly lost and gone.”

“And once married folk have strayed into the dark wood,” Helen adds, “one doesn’t hear that they generally find their way out.”

Such straying is left for the reader to discover, who might also find repeated allusions to dark parts of the forest, or fighting one’s way through tangled woods …

The novel is filled with such subtle moments to delight students and scholars, details I cheer because Emma Donoghue is clearly a caring writer who deserves the attention of caring readers. And if I notice moments that remind me of Paris and Helen in the Trojan War; of Andrew Marvell’s longing for his coy mistress; of Lewis Carroll’s mystery of plunging down a rabbit hole; of the American Civil War raging an ocean away — acknowledged twice, perhaps to remind some readers of the grim reality behind Jane Austen’s wonderful novels, marital quests whose knightly heroes and heroines rightfully can’t be bothered with the Napoleonic Wars, their personal quests so all-consuming because a wrong choice of husband or wife in that era could be fatal (mustn’t say too much here) — well, many readers may not care about all these trifles in preference to the lover’s dalliant descent, and that’s okay, I’m just glad for anything that helps sell this well-told tale.

About Emma Donoghue Author Of The Sealed Letter pdf Book

Emma Donoghue the author of The Sealed Letter pdf book grew up in Ireland, 20s in England doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature, since then in Canada. Best known for my novel, film and play ROOM, also other contemporary and historical novels and short stories, non-fiction, theatre and middle-grade novels.