The Sealed Letter » (Reprint)

Award-winning Irish writer Emma Donoghue, Publishers Weekly writes, "Has an extraordinary talent for turning exhaustive research into plausible characters and narratives; she presents a vibrant world seething with repressed feeling and class tensions." Her latest novel, Life Mask, delves into the fashion-obsessed world of 18th-century London.

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 a 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 an intriguing courtroom drama complete with 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.

The Washington Post - Sophie Gee

Donoghue has written two other successful historical novels—the critically acclaimed Life Mask and Slammerkin—and it shows. She knows her way around a period drama. A ride on London's new underground railway, a visit to Fido's printing presses, descriptions of Victorian interiors, shops and streetscapes, all these details are absorbed into the narrative, and you barely notice they're there, except that mid-Victorian London feels so real you can almost taste it…Donoghue is masterful in handling the theme of Fido's possible erotic desire for Helen and Helen's manipulation of same. She depicts female sexual attraction as a complex threat, both enthralling and taboo.

Contents

i Prima Facie 1

ii Feme Covert 55

iii Reasonable Suspicion 89

iv Engagement 105

v Surveillance 123

vi Actus Reus 149

vii Desertion 163

viii Mutatis Mutandis 197

ix Counterclaim 219

x Subpoena 233

xi Trial 247

xii Evidence 285

xiii Sabotage 307

xiv Contempt 317

xv Charge 329

xvi Witness 337

xvii Verdict 363

xviii Feme Sole 371

Author’s Note 391

Acknowledgements 399