Customer Reviews

Lady's Maid: A Historical Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I began reading the book (a library copy) while staying with a friend who had checked it out and only got as far as the first few chapters before I went home. I finally got my hands on my own copy and finished it in a matter of a couple of days. What a treasure!

Forster truly captures the feelings and struggles between the servant-class and the gentry of the era. Too often with books and movies of the period we only see the servants as floating background characters that announce guests, deliver tea-trays, and see to the horses. We forget that often these are humans with feelings and difficult lives.

We see Wilson torn from everything she holds dear in the course of the story. Each time she loses, she steels her resolve and is stronger, but more cynical over time. Yet her devotion to the Browning family never wavers. Elizabeth Barrett Browning holds Wilson in thrall; and for the most part the reverse is true as well.

A touching, sad tale.

As an English teacher, I'm ashamed to admit that I knew very little about either Elizabeth Barrett or Robert Browning before picking up this book. The story of their maid, Lily Wilson, gives an interesting perspective on the private life of Elizabeth and Robert. And I admired that Forster depicted the two famous literary figures as she saw to be accurate, rather than glamorizing and glorifying them as there might be a temptation to do. The two poets are very human, often fussy, melodramatic, and given to self-aggrandizement. That made me all the more interested in the story of Lily and the difference in their lifestyle and hers, and of course their indifference to the way they treated her. It's been a while since I read something like Jane Austen, so it was refreshing and fascinating to dip back into a world with social codes so different from ours today. This book must have taken years to research, and Forster's depiction of Victorian life shows the evidence of that research.

There was a page-long afterword that explained which parts of the book were true, but I wanted more. I wish Margaret Forster had written more books like this! You won't be sorry you picked it up.

that pulls the reader into the very essence of Wilson's life as a "lady's maid to Miss Elizabeth Barrett Browning" during the 1860's. Although one wants to shake some sense into Wilson, one cannot help but to empathize with her depression over her separation from her child and her being "turned out" from her service. This is a wonderful novel that will encase the reader's complete attention from the first page until the last.

In 1844, Lily Wilson becomes lady's maid to Elizabeth Barrett, invalid daughter of a wealthy, overbearing London merchant. Elizabeth became a recluse, corresponding and eventually meeting the poet Robert Browning. Because her father disapproved of his children marrying, Elizabeth eloped with Robert to Italy.

The story is half about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and half about Lily. I found the details of EBB's life to be much more interesting than that of Wilson's, and I wish there was more about her in this novel. I got the feeling that Wilson never really had a life of her own--everything she did was connected in some way with her mistress. However, I'd like to think that this was characteristic of the period--good servants didn't really have lives of their own. Nonetheless, Wilson seemed to get herself into a lot of romantic entanglements that made me wonder what the point of it was. The writing style of the book is very dense, and it took me a long time to get through--much longer than it normally takes me to read a 550-page book. I also thought that about 200 pages could have been cut from the novel--it just seemed to drag on a bit.

Nevertheless, there were a couple of things I enjoyed about this book, not the least of which was the setting--Victorian England and Italy never fail to interest me. I also liked the author's message about choice--Wilson could have learned a thing or two from her mistress.

I read Forster's definitive biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. When I heard about this book, I was a little skeptical, but remembered what a great biograher Forester was. Boy was I blown away. It not only presents an "insider's view" of the relationship between these people, but it also sheds light on the role of women and "servants" in Victorian society. A book well worth reading.

I picked up this book at a used book store not really knowing anything about Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I loved this book. It was an interesting point of view, one I truly enjoyed, perhaps more than if it had been from EBB herself. The book is long but did not seem it; it did slow down just a tad in the end, but I have nothing but good things to say about this book. The author really captured the language of the time and it was excellently written. If you like historical fiction, I highly recommend this one.

Lady's Maid is the fictional life story of Lily Wilson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's maid. Since all I knew about either of the Browning poets before starting this book was the little bit I remember from high school English, I wasn't sure if this was the book for me; fortunately, it really is the story of Wilson (as she is called throughout the book), and background knowledge about her employers is not essential. In fact, being famous poets, I expected to see them romanticized, but they're not; this is an unflinching tale of the conditions of 19th century servitude, including low wages and the impossibility of starting a family while retaining work as a maid. Parts of the book are likely to leave the reader angry with the Brownings, which may be disappointing for fans of their work.

The book is narrated in the 3rd person and almost entirely from Wilson's perspective, but peppered with letters she writes to friends and family, long enough that at times it feels as if the book is jumping back and forth between 1st and 3rd person. The beginning positively drags, but the pace picks up slightly as the book goes on and Wilson travels with the Brownings and courts several different men. I found this to be an engaging book and well worth reading if you're interested in seeing life from the servant's perspective; somehow all those books where the main characters are served fail to portray the difficulty a servant faces if she dares to want a life of her own. And Lady's Maid is also an interesting study in co-dependency in its portrayal of Wilson's relationship with her mistress. At 550 pages, the book at times feels overlong, although I understand the difficulty in trying to cover 17 years of a woman's life while including enough concrete scenes that we still feel connected to her.

Overall, I would recommend this book if you have the patience to see it through and still think it worth your time. If nothing else, it's an honest look at relationships that transcends any specific time period.

This book was engrossing although I did not understand the obsessive love the maid, Elizabeth (Lily) Wilson, had for Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The way the relationship was laid out in the book between Wilson and Barrett Browning did not merit the reciprocation of love that Wilson gave to her employer. Perhaps that is the impetus that spurred the author to write the book, i.e., the strangeness of the obsessive love Wilson had for Barrett Browning. It certainly gives one much to ponder at the end of the book, such as how much about Wilson's character is true and how much fiction. There is also much to ponder about other relationships in Wilson's life and her treatment of them but I don't want to give anything away so I won't mention them.

I also felt the book was, in some places, too long. The author went on a bit too much when she could have shortened an episode of storytelling; especially toward the end. I wanted her to get to the ultimate point but she went on and on for pages with inconsequential day to day trivia before she finally did. Was she just trying to keep me purposely in suspense? I don't mind some suspense, in fact it is welcome but too much becomes tedious.

Overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

Forster does a good job of pulling us into the plight of Wilson, the maid. She effectively demonstrates the selfishness of employers and the desperation of servants in that era. The book is long and sometimes slow and seems to repeat itself in certain points, and I wish Wilson had come to her realization of self-sufficiency earlier on, but overall I liked it and wanted to see how it ended, however sad.

Told from the intriguing perspective of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's maid, Wilson, this book asks us to look at the relationship between the English upper-class and their personal servants in the nineteenth century. Where close bonds can develop, as they do here, what are the obligations of a maid to her mistress, and what are the obligations of a mistress to her maid?

Here, the Brownings (especially Elizabeth) do not necessarily come off well, at some points seeming to deliberately throw up obstacles to the happiness of Mrs. Browning's maid, even though to help her would come at little or no cost to themselves, and would seem to be no more than she deserves after years of loyal and devoted service. But Wilson also makes poor choices; is she relying on the Brownings for their help inappropriately? That she continually chooses her employers over herself and her family is frustrating, as is the Browning's continuing inability to recognize the sacrifices she makes.

The resolution of the book is not entirely satisfactory. After a lengthy, drawn-out process, Wilson more or less accepts that she is on her own and that the Brownings owe her nothing. But it feels more as though she was forced to this realization, rather than coming to it naturally, and showing some growth as a character.