As the first nineteenth century woman to successfully campaign for women’s rights legislation, Caroline Norton has been comparatively neglected and under-researched. There is, however, a current and growing interest in her life and work. This is a new three volume collection of the correspondence of Caroline Norton. The collection includes over 750 of her letters and also features an introduction by the editors, contextualising and embedding Caroline’s literary and political achievements within the narrative of her letters.
Volume I
Acknowledgements
Editorial Standards and Practices
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: 28 July 1828 – 29 December 1835
Index of Letters
Letters from 28 July 1828 to 29 December 1835
Bibliography
Chapter 2: [3] January [1836] – [26 December 1836]
Index of Letters
Letters from [3] January [1836] to [26 December 1836]
Bibliography
Chapter 3: 1 January 1837 – 31 December 1837
Index of Letters
Letters from 1 January 1837 to 31 December 1837
Bibliography
Volume II
Chapter 4: [13 January 1838] – 13 December 1847
Index of Letters
Letters from [13 January 1838] to 13 December 1847
Bibliography
Chapter 5: 12 January 1848 – 25 November 1857
Index of Letters
Letters from 12 January 1848 to 25 November 1857
Bibliography
Volume III
Chapter 6: 19 February [1858] – 20 December 1867
Index of Letters
Letters from 19 February [1858] to 20 December 1867
Bibliography
Chapter 7: 7 January 1868 – [10 June 1877]
Index of Letters
Letters from 7 January 1868 to [10 June 1877]
Bibliography
Biographical Index
Index
Biography
Ross Nelson holds a BA from Oxford University and a doctorate in English Literature
Marie Mulvey-Roberts is Professor of English Literature at the University of the West of England, UK.
These letters are an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the extraordinary life of Caroline Norton, novelist, poet, and campaigner for married women and mother’s rights.
Selected from over 80 archives and 2000 letters, they contain rare insights into her close relationships, including her intimate friendship with Lord Melbourne and friendships with other well-known writers such as Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Robert Browning, Sheridan Le Fanu, Edward Trelawny, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Benjamin Disraeli, Frances Trollope, William Longfellow, Lucie Duff Gordon, William Barnes, Catherine Gore, Alexander Kinglake and Henry Taylor.
Other celebrated Victorian figures who feature in the correspondence include Charles Babbage, William Gladstone, Mary Ann Disraeli, Lord and Lady Palmerston, Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, Edwin Landseer, Charles Macready, Amelia B. Edwards, Sidney Herbert, Leigh Hunt and Daniel Maclise.
These impeccably annotated and newly transcribed letters gathered from around the world open up a colourful nineteenth-century panorama of politics, literature and society.
Lady Antonia Fraser