The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives by Diane Johnson

The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives by Diane Johnson

A classic of alternative biography and feminist writing, this empathetic and witty book gives due to a "lesser" figure of history, Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith, who was brilliant, unconventional, and at odds with the constraints of Victorian life.

"Many people have described the Famous Writer presiding at his dinner table. . . . He is famous; everybody remembers his remarks. . . . We forget that there were other family members at the table--a quiet person, now muffled by time, shadowy, whose heart pounded with love, perhaps, or rage." So begins The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives, an uncommon biography devoted to one of those "lesser lives." As the author points out, "A lesser life does not seem lesser to the person who leads one." Such sympathy and curiosity compelled Diane Johnson to research Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith (1821-1861), the daughter of the famous artist Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) and first wife of the equally famous poet George Meredith (1828-1909). Her life, treated perfunctorily and prudishly in biographies of Peacock or Meredith, is here exquisitely and unhurriedly given its due. What emerges is the portrait of a brilliant, well-educated woman, raised unconventionally by her father only to feel more forcefully the constraints of the Victorian era. First published in 1972, Lesser Lives has been a key text for feminists and biographers alike, a book that reimagined what biography might be, both in terms of subject and style. Biographies of other "lesser" lives have since followed in its footsteps, but few have the wit, elegance, and empathy of Johnson's seminal work.

Diane Johnson is the author of many novels, including Persian Nights, Health and Happiness, Laying Low, The Shadow Knows, and Burning, as well as the bestselling novel Le Divorce, which was a National Book Award finalist. For Persian Nights, she was a Pulitzer Prize nominee, and she co-wrote the script for The Shining with Stanley Kubrick. She spends time in both San Francisco and Paris.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781681374451
ISBN 10	1681374455
Title	The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives
Author	Diane Johnson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The New York Review of Books, Inc
Year published	2020-06-23
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.