The Sealed Letter
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Review
'The trial is a delicious romp but it's also an eye-opening look at the injustice of Victorian divorce, where children were their father's property. It might not have the inspiring qualities of Room, but The Sealed Letter is a page-turner with a jaw-dropping ending.' --Stylist
'A very enjoyable . . . romp.' --Independent on Sunday
'An enjoyable romp with subtle intrigue woven into the plot and demonstrates a deftness for dialogue, bringing to life the well-painted characters.' --Press Association
'Donoghue plunges her readers headlong into her deeply researched world . . . Donoghue never allows the pace to falter, while her fresh imagery and fastidious attention to period detail . . . recall the immersive, mock-Victorian milieu of Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White . . . It's in her characterisation that Donoghue is most successful.' --Big Issue
'Although the headline-grabbing timeliness of Donoghue's most recent, Booker-shortlisted work is absent here, her burgeoning reputation as an author is hopefully enough to earn this earlier work a deserved reappraisal.'
--The List
'Blissfully readable and immaculately researched.' --The Times
'The Sealed Letter is an enjoyable romp with subtle intrigue woven into the plot and demonstrates a deftness for dialogue, brining to life the well-painted characters.' --Press Association
'Set in Victorian England and based on a real-life divorce case that scandalised the country in 1864, it tells the tale of two female friends whose lives are never the same again once one of them embarks on an obsessive affair.' --Bella
'A page-turning drama packed with sex, passion and intrigue.' --Daily Mail
`In forensically revisiting the true story of the Codrington divorce, Donoghue tells a tale which slow-burns with the pace of English reserve but lends sharp insight to each of its players . . . a deserved reappraisal.' --The List
`Donoghue never allows the pace to falter, while her fresh imagery and fastidious attention to period detail . . . recall the immersive, mock-Victorian milieu of Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White' --Big Issue
`The author interlaces hard-hitting historical fact and imaginative fiction into the narrative with a deft and breezy touch: the reader can almost hear the characters' voices long after closing the book.' --Sunday Telegraph
`A page-turning drama packed with sex, passion and intrigue.' --Daily Mail
`A glorious piece of Victoriana: it's elegant and well-constructed, it's finished off with fancy swoops and swirls, but it's also a great work of industry' --Sunday Herald
`They don't make scandals like this anymore.' --Saga
`The author interlaces hard-hitting historical fact and imaginative fiction into the narrative with a deft and breezy touch: the reader can almost hear the characters' voices long after closing the book.' --Irish Independent
`An absorbing read with vivid characters.' --We Love This Book
`Donoghue has crafted a lively, gossipy drama.' --Image magazine
`Donoghue's mastery lies in making a relationship between a vain and treacherous adulteress and a woman of principle believable, while retaining one explicatory secret for the very last scene.' --The Tablet
`In a story that gallops along yet is packed with detail, she has brought colour to the black-and-white reports of the Codringtons' divorce, and written intriguingly about the accompanying issues of feminism and love between women.' --TLS
'A very enjoyable . . . romp.' --Independent on Sunday
'An enjoyable romp with subtle intrigue woven into the plot and demonstrates a deftness for dialogue, bringing to life the well-painted characters.' --Press Association
'Donoghue plunges her readers headlong into her deeply researched world . . . Donoghue never allows the pace to falter, while her fresh imagery and fastidious attention to period detail . . . recall the immersive, mock-Victorian milieu of Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White . . . It's in her characterisation that Donoghue is most successful.' --Big Issue
'Although the headline-grabbing timeliness of Donoghue's most recent, Booker-shortlisted work is absent here, her burgeoning reputation as an author is hopefully enough to earn this earlier work a deserved reappraisal.'
--The List
'Blissfully readable and immaculately researched.' --The Times
'The Sealed Letter is an enjoyable romp with subtle intrigue woven into the plot and demonstrates a deftness for dialogue, brining to life the well-painted characters.' --Press Association
'Set in Victorian England and based on a real-life divorce case that scandalised the country in 1864, it tells the tale of two female friends whose lives are never the same again once one of them embarks on an obsessive affair.' --Bella
'A page-turning drama packed with sex, passion and intrigue.' --Daily Mail
`In forensically revisiting the true story of the Codrington divorce, Donoghue tells a tale which slow-burns with the pace of English reserve but lends sharp insight to each of its players . . . a deserved reappraisal.' --The List
`Donoghue never allows the pace to falter, while her fresh imagery and fastidious attention to period detail . . . recall the immersive, mock-Victorian milieu of Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White' --Big Issue
`The author interlaces hard-hitting historical fact and imaginative fiction into the narrative with a deft and breezy touch: the reader can almost hear the characters' voices long after closing the book.' --Sunday Telegraph
`A page-turning drama packed with sex, passion and intrigue.' --Daily Mail
`A glorious piece of Victoriana: it's elegant and well-constructed, it's finished off with fancy swoops and swirls, but it's also a great work of industry' --Sunday Herald
`They don't make scandals like this anymore.' --Saga
`The author interlaces hard-hitting historical fact and imaginative fiction into the narrative with a deft and breezy touch: the reader can almost hear the characters' voices long after closing the book.' --Irish Independent
`An absorbing read with vivid characters.' --We Love This Book
`Donoghue has crafted a lively, gossipy drama.' --Image magazine
`Donoghue's mastery lies in making a relationship between a vain and treacherous adulteress and a woman of principle believable, while retaining one explicatory secret for the very last scene.' --The Tablet
`In a story that gallops along yet is packed with detail, she has brought colour to the black-and-white reports of the Codringtons' divorce, and written intriguingly about the accompanying issues of feminism and love between women.' --TLS
Product Description
From the bestselling author of ROOM comes a delicious tale of secrets, betrayal and forbidden love.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real page turner,
By
This review is from: The Sealed Letter (Hardcover)
I loved this book and couldn't put it down for a week until it was finished.The only other book I'd read by Emma Donaghue was The Room, which I found slow to start but absolutely brilliant once I was into it. The Sealed Letter is another real page turner, but one that I was stuck to from the first chapter to the twist at the end. It's a very easy read, but that doesn't mean it lacks depth. Far from it, the author has done heaps of research for this book - it was based on a real divorce scandal in the Victorian era - and she brings the characters alive beautifully. The story and dialogue are brilliant, but I think the author's real strength is her pacing. There's never a dull chapter. Every page delivers what you want and the plot never goes stale. Can't recommend it enough. It's a perfect holiday read in particular.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Captivating and absorbing read,
By
This review is from: The Sealed Letter (Paperback)
Emma Donoghue's re-issued novel The Sealed Letter is based on the scandalous (by 1864 standards) real-life divorce case of Codrington versus Codrington & Anderson. Donoghue has meticulously researched the case and the divorce and family laws of the time to create a compelling story involving three very well-drawn protagonists, as well as some delightfully pompous and almost Dickensian supporting characters.Emily 'Fido' Faithfull was one of the leading members of the Victorian women's movement and the owner of a successful publishing company. However, Donogue portrays her as a very private and fairly prim woman - in the words of her fair-weather friend Helen Codrington: "For all her strong views on certain subjects ... she's an utterly conventional woman". And therein lies the problem: Helen is anything but a conventional Victorian wife and she plays Fido like a fiddle in order to cover up her affair with the dashing Colonel Anderson. Helen was raised in India and Italy and, by the admission of her own barrister, has "foreign habits". Her husband, Vice Admiral Harry Codrington, is a sober and very traditional man, totally out of his depth in a marriage to a much younger, wild-spirited woman. It's fair to say that he's not sympathetic to the cause of women's independence as promoted by Fido and her chums - "bomb throwers in bonnets" is one of his kinder epithets - but it's hard not to feel a little sympathy for him as he battles to protect his two young daughters from the scandal caused by the antics of their mendacious and duplicitous mother. I can completely understand why the publishers are promoting this re-issue on the back of the success of 'Room', but I can't stress how different it is. Room was such an extraordinary, unique novel, and 'The Sealed Letter' is more of a conventional historical read, though I found it just as witty (but perhaps not as bawdy) as her earlier book, 'Slammerkin'. Emma Donoghue is such a versatile and captivating writer you really have to judge each book on its own merits and this one scored very highly with me. I still have her 'Life Mask' to be read and am very much looking forward to it.
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astounding exercise in control ...,
This review is from: The Sealed Letter (Hardcover)
I loved 'Room' for the unique way in which Donaghue managed to convey the enclosed world of its victims, and their eventual escape, with such aplomb, but felt it was a novel of two halves, flagging somewhat in its second section. Not so with 'The Sealed Letter', written before 'Room' I believe and published in Canada, a number of years ago. This is, in my opinion, the more accomplished of the two recent releases by the author, and, like 'Room' is based on real-life, actual events, this time drawn from a scandalous court case of the Victorian era. The characters and setting are brought to life with such assuredness, I found myself drawn into the intriguing tale from the outset and could not rest until the novel reached its impeccably-handled conclusion. Most effective of all is the way in which Donaghue elicits sympathy for all three of her central protagonists, using the third person to present each competing perspective on the matters and particulars of the trial itself. Cannot recommend this tome highly enough.
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