Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of a Marriage, a Trial, and a Self-Made Woman [Hardcover]

Chloë Schama (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 16, 2010

What started as a friendly conversation between a young girl, Theresa Longworth, and an army officer, William Charles Yelverton, on a steamer bound from France to England in 1852 would culminate nearly a decade later in one of the biggest public scandals the era had witnessed, with enormous implications for society at large. Seized upon by the Victorian press, the trials to legitimize Longworth's marriage to Yelverton before the law courts of Ireland, Scotland, and England brought to the fore several of the most disconcerting matters in the Victorian era: the inadequacies of female education, prejudice against single women, and problems with marriage law.

When Theresa Yelverton emerged victorious from her legal battles, she was paraded through Dublin's streets like a queen. Her victory, though, was short-lived, as she learned that life as a single woman?even the life of a well-known writer and traveler, as she became?would always be hard. Theresa Yelverton became an unwitting harbinger of the turmoil of her era and evoked timeless fears and fascinations: the fantasy of romance, the grip of obsession, the plight of unrequited love, the fear of abandonment. Chloe Schama brilliantly recaptures an ordinary woman caught up in an extraordinary affair, catapulted into fame and notoriety, forcing her society to confront some of its most unsettling issues.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Contemporary women raised in semi-feminist-friendly Western cultures owe a large debt of gratitude to a host of nameless women who struggled mightily to effect social change during the rigid Victorian era. Schama has plucked one of these basically anonymous females from the scrap heap of history, breathing new life into the story of one woman’s dogged determination to salvage her tattered reputation and forge an independent life for herself in the aftermath of a publicly debated scandal and a failed marriage. Although Theresa Longworth, a typical nineteenth-century Englishwoman who craved a home and a husband more than anything else, was on the surface an unlikely feminist heroine, circumstances forced her to take a very public stand when her ne’er-do-well husband abandoned her and denied their legal union. Waging her battle through the court systems of England, Ireland, and Scotland, she eventually prevailed, but her hard-won victory cost her the chance of ever experiencing a socially acceptable life as a wife and a mother. Instead, she traveled the globe chronicling her adventures and carving out a career for herself as a noted travel writer. --Margaret Flanagan

Review

“Schama spins a fine story herself.”—New York Times Book Review

“Chloë Schama gives Longworth Yelverton her due in insightful and entertaining style. She is a star on the rise.”—Town and Country

“A nonfiction debut most writers only dream about … Chloë Schama’s retelling of the history of one of Victorian England’s most notorious scandals reads like a novel itself … history buffs and those who enjoy a good, old-fashioned scandal will find charm here.”—Library Journal

“Schama breathes new life into the story of one woman’s dogged determination to salvage her tattered reputation and forge an independent life for herself in the aftermath of a publicly debated scandal and a failed marriage.”—Booklist

“Schama tells Longworth’s story well, keeping a steady eye on the sources and placing her firmly within whatever extraordinary context she [Longworth] found herself.”—Bookforum

“Chloë Schama will delight her readers. She writes with confidence and passion, yet with a sensitivity for her subject which is wonderfully appealing. I finished the book with regret, wanting more and impatient for a sequel.”—Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire 

“Wild Romance is a book that will take you for a whooping ride from the highlands of Scotland to the majestic beauty of Yosemite to the mystical power of Hong Kong Harbor.  Our heroine, Teresina, is a woman who fights for a life of conventional marriage, yet in her struggle, discovers she is destined for much more.  This is history that reads like quality, page-turning fiction.  It is at once riveting and enlightening.”—Elin Hilderbrand, New York Times bestselling author of Barefoot and The Castaways

“Bringing together a Victorian novelist’s reach and richness with the discerning intelligence of a twenty-first-century literary biographer, Chloë Schama creates a thrilling narrative that locates the themes of Victorian scandal and adventure within contemporary feminist values of courage and autonomy. Schama’s fine acrobatic grace enables her to tread the tightrope between the constraints of history and the wild romance of an unfulfilled life.”—Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities and director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company; 1 edition (March 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802717365
• ISBN-13: 978-0802717368
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,446,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A decent work of nonfiction, but could use some improvement (3.5 stars) March 16, 2010

By K. Huff VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Wild Romance is the true story of the life of Theresa Longworth, a woman who, in 1852, met William Yelverton aboard a steamship. Their romance was a mostly one-sided affair, which concluded with two secret marriages. When Yelverton later abandoned Theresa for marriage to another woman, Theresa instigated the first of several court cases to determine that her marriage to him was valid.

On the whole, this story of this book is stretched a bit thin. Only half of this 250-page book is devoted to the "romance" and trial; the rest to Theresa's travels throughout America and Asia. I was expecting something meatier, something that would explain why Yelverton led Theresa on to the extent that he did. It's quite possible that all he was after was sex; but in that case, why would he go so far as to have two weddings to her? The rhetoric of the court suggested that Yelverton was seduced by Theresa, and was led astray by his desires, but I tend to think that things were much more complicated than that. I guess the largest problem I had was that Yelverton as a person never really came across. In fact, he's hardly mentioned in the second half of the book as Theresa went abroad. I'd love to have known, too, what his wife, Emily Forbes, thought of the whole affair. After all, if Yelverton had been forced to take responsibility for his actions, he would basically have been committing bigamy, and his children with his second wife illegitimate.

Although the reader was privy to Theresa's thoughts and actions, I never really empathized with her. I'm not sure that I agree with the author's assessment of her; in fact, I'm not sure that she wasn't simply out for her fifteen minutes of fame, frequently making an exhibition of herself, making her look flighty at best and stupid at worst. In the end, I realized that both parties in the Yelverton case were simply subjects of their own stupidity and bad decisions.

Although I thought the book was well-researched, and the author is a competent writer, I thought the photographs in the book needed improvement. For example, there's only one picture in the entire book of Yelverton--a grainy, blurred miniature at the beginning. The rest of the photographs are vague, indistinct photographs and paintings (some anachronistic) of the places Theresa and Yelverton visited. I'm not one for judging a book solely on the pictures reproduced inside, but these definitely weren't of great quality. In all, this is a decent work of nonfiction.

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Victorian Scandal March 22, 2011

By H. Rieseck VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I decided to read/review this book because the title of the book screams SCANDAL - and everyone loves to read about a good scandal! This was certainly quite the scandal, but the book overall didn't quite pan out that way I would have liked.

The first half of the book focuses on detailing Theresa's relationship with Yelverton and then going into the various trials that ensued in Scotland, Ireland and England that were to prove whether these two were actually married or not. This section of the book I found the most interesting. Most striking were the legal rights and the differences between a married, single, or an abandoned woman. Theresa had to tread carefully along these lines in carrying out her case. The mental characters that I created of Yelverton and Theresa is that they were both, to some degree, crazy. Theresa was fixated on Yelverton and I wouldn't put it past her to have made up some things as she went along. Yelverton, on the other hand, would constantly verbally push Theresa away, but he would always keep coming back - talk about mixed messages! Reading about these two people kept me glued to the first portion of the book.

The second half I didn't love much at all and I lost a lot of interest. The second half focuses primarily on Theresa as a Victorian travel writer following the outcome of her trials. We follow her through the US National Parks and meet John Muir. I know that travel writing became a big thing in the Victorian days and the idea is somewhat interesting to me, but I think the execution wasn't spot on here. The transition from the trial to the travel writing was somewhat awkward and not nearly as exciting. It also was dominated by more of a description of women travel writers than specifically about Theresa's travels. I just found this portion to be more dry and stuffy than the first, which was exciting.

On a side note - there were pictures scattered throughout the book that really helped to break up the text and were much appreciated.

This was really more of a 3.5 star read - but I decided to round up to 4.

This book was received from the publicist in exchange for an honest review.