Relations by Jane Miller

Relations by Jane Miller

In this remarkable book, Jane Miller writes about the experience of being a daughter and a sister, about the intensities of family life and the illuminations that come from the last days of parents. Relations describes a record-keeping kinship and offers portraits of her parents' long marriage, its mysteries and incompatibilities, of her grandfather, the scientist Redcliffe Salaman, and of her great-aunt Clara Collet, one of the first women civil servants. It is a story in which Karl Marx and George Gissing have parts to play.

Here are the tensions of belonging and yet not belonging to an English middle-class at once hospitable to difference and internally divided. More than two hundred years of English history are present in these portraits, which show the dawning emancipation of women and the effects of empire on family life. It is the story of an evolution, of a move out of trade towards public service and the professions, and towards the dramas and family romance of recent times.

The book's intelligence, wry humour and sense of history (particularly women's history) are compelling -- Blake Morrison * Guardian *
This is a book which arouses pleasurable reflection, evoking wonder at the extraordinary nature of what appears obvious, and the elusiveness of those closest to us * Independent *
Perfectly paced, intimate memoir * Women and Home *
I especially admired Jane Miller's Relations, an astute and skillful investigation into the author's family -- Michael Holyroyd * Guardian *

Jane Miller is Professor Emeritus, London University Institute of Education. She is the author of Many Voices, Women Writing About Men, Seductions, More Has Meant Women: The Feminisation of Schooling and School for Women.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780099453499
ISBN 10	0099453495
Title	Relations
Author	Jane Miller
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2004-10-07
Number of pages	288
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.