Diana of the Crossways [Hardcover]

George Meredith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2002

Diana of the Crossways retells a tale that may well have been true: Although Meredith was forced to attach a disclaimer to the novel, it was no secret when he wrote the book that he was writing about the life of Caroline Norton, granddaughter of playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Unhappily married, the woman ("Diana"), takes a lover -- and becomes suspect when someone reveals an important political secret that she, as lover, was party to. A compelling study of a woman and her times. (jacketless library hardcover)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Novel by George Meredith, 26 chapters of which were published serially in 1884 in the Fortnightly Review. A "considerably enlarged" three-volume book was published in 1885. Diana of the Crossways examines the unhappy marriage of the title character Diana Warwick and is loosely based on events in the life of Caroline Norton (playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan's granddaughter), who was suspected of revealing an important political secret that she had acquired from her lover. Although Meredith was forced to attach a disclaimer to the novel, his story is less about political scandal than about his protagonist's inner life and motives. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Wildside Press (August 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592249051
• ISBN-13: 978-1592249053
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,040,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected, October 16, 2010

By 

K. Huff (Radnor, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Diana of the Crossways (Paperback)

Diana of the Crossways is a novel that was closely modeled on the life of Caroline Norton, a Victorian feminist who famously separated from her husband, later having an affairs with a rising politician.

George Meredith was a close friend of Norton's and so this novel portrays Caroline (renamed Diana in this book) in an extremely sympathetic like--sometimes too sympathetically. To protect her reputation, I suspect Meredith took a lot of the scandal out of Diana's story--really, to the detriment of the book, since Caroline Norton had an extremely fascinating life. As a result, Meredith manages to make Diana's story uninteresting, to the point where I just didn't care much about the story or characters. It's too bad, because George Meredith has a lot of material to work from.

Instead, he spends a lot of time in this book dissecting his main character and the motives for her decisions. Meredith also extracts a lot from the writing of "Diana," which got a bit tedious after a while; and the book is overtly feminist in a lot of places (for example, at one point Meredith--not Meredith writing as Diana--predicts that one day women will be encouraged to have professions, which is no big deal nowadays but back then must have seemed preposterous). However, the novel highlights the position that women had in Victorian society, which is sometimes interesting. On the other hand, George Meredith's writing style is very, very hard to read, which is probably why this novel, and why this kind of novel, has become deeply unfashionable.