Product Description

The Lady's maid of the title is Elizabeth Wilson and the Lady is Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Elizabeth is a young woman who is intelligent, astute and aspiring to a better life and this book describes her life within the confines of her occupation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #140759 in Books
• Published on: 1991-06-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Guardian
'Compulsively readable'

Guardian
'Compulsively readable'

About the Author
Margaret Forster was born in Carlisle in 1938. She is the author of bestselling memoirs, Hidden Lives and Precious Lives, acclaimed biographies of Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and of many successful novels, such as Lady's Maid, Private Papers & most recently Diary of an Ordinary Woman.

Customer Reviews

Fact Meets Fiction
Fact and fiction are very close in this account of Wilson, Lady's Maid to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. There is an `afterword' at the end of the novel which personally I wish I had read first rather than at the end. It is worth reading as it separates the fact from fiction and helps with the appreciation of this sensitively written love story.

Wilson did not have an easy life as Lady's Maid, though at times over the years felt she was becoming closer to her mistress. The occasions however were always short lived and to quote from the novel. `Those who serve can never hope to breach the gap between themselves and those who are served'

Another enjoyable and eminently readable novel from Margaret Forster, whose work I have been reading since 1969!!

A complicated but passionate love story!
The book captured my interest from the moment I found out it was a love story. Based on fact and some fiction, it was a moving story, full of passionate characters, from Elizabeth Barrett to Mr Browning, and to Elizabeth Wilson herself. It is an honest tale of class differences, and an unusual inspiring friendship that broke the usual trends, amongst a most heartfelt love story. If a book can make you experience a number of emotions, such as this one did, then it has suceeded in telling a good story. I was engrossed from the start and was sad to finish it. I would recommend this book to fans of the classics such as 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte, and 'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier. It has become one of my favourite books now and I will read it again.

Heroine becomes annoying
Modern women's novels set in Victorian times are rare, and so I pounced on this novel when I heard about it. It was certainly a great read early on, offering a beautifully-constructed glimpse into this fabulous lost world.

As Wilson appeared to develop from a mouse into a much more confident person, my attention was hooked, and I was hungry for more. But her transformation is short-lived, and as the novel progressed I became more and more frustrated with her obsession with the self-centred, passive-aggressive Mrs Browning....I do not like my heroines to be pathetic. Or at least they can be pathetic at the start, but then develop. The novel just fizzled for me.

I think the problem stems from basing a novel on real circumstances. It works fine if the real circumstances are dramatic, and if they allow for a real development of plot and character. But the circumstances surrounding the Browings and their maid just result in a kind of stagnation. There is certainly a kind of satisfaction, as a reader, in getting a feel for the bleakness of that time for people in Wilson's social position, and getting to grips with the mindset of a servant. And I think Forster's central aim with A Lady's Maid is to describe Wilson's changing, and increasingly obsessed mindset. But, as far as I'm concerned, it's not a satisfying read. Many a time I just found myself mentally rolling my eyes at Wilson's seemingly stupid choices.

I also would have liked there to be a little more "immediacy" in the story-telling, in the manner of the old writers' adage "show, don't tell". At a couple of points Wilson is "walking out" with a man, but we we barely hear about her beaux. Still, I suppose that, at least, is a matter of taste, and maybe it is more in keeping with the traditional Victorian novel for things to be related in a less direct way. And at any rate, it would have meant a longer novel.