Two-Way Mirror by Fiona Sampson (jenna bush book club txt) 📗

Russell Square the night before: ‘Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Landor, and Mr. White dined here.

I like Mr. Wordsworth of all things; he is a most venerable-looking old man, delightfully mild and placid, and most kind to me. Mr. Landor is a very striking-looking person, and exceedingly clever. Also we had a Mr. Browning, a young poet (author of “Paracelsus”), and Mr. Proctor, and Mr. Chorley, and quantities more of poets.’ Mitford to George Mitford 26 May 1836, SD798. Paracelsus, the first work published by Browning under his own name, was published by Effingham Wilson on 15 August 1835, paid for by RB’s father.

‘Dare I…’ EBB to Thomas Noon Talfourd 21 January 1836, #523. ‘I wrote as if writing for my private conscience, & privately repented writing in a day’; EBB to RB 7 December 1845, #2131.

p. 92

‘A Tragedy…’ RB to William Charles Macready 28 May 1836, #526. But they fall out over revisions.

‘Wd wish for more harmony…’ EBB to Mitford 10 August 1836, #534. The Athenaeum vol. 454 (1836), p. 491.

p. 93

‘You might think me…’ EBB to Julia Martin 7 December 1836, #546.

Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village (London: Whittaker & Co.), vol. 1 1824, vol. 2 1826, vol. 3 1828, vol. 4 1830, vol. 5 1832, followed by a new edition in three volumes (London: Whittaker & Co., 1835), with engravings by Baxter. Belford Regis (1835) was also based on life in Three Mile Cross. In 1851 she moved to nearby Swallowfield.

Mitford’s portrait: 1853 oil by John Lucas after Benjamin Robert Haydon 1824, National Portrait Gallery 404; 1852 chalk drawing by John Lucas, NPG 4045.

p. 94

Mitford repackages work to maximise sales, edits annuals, and writes for non-literary magazines.

‘Sweet young woman…’ Mitford to George Mitford 27 May 1836, SD799. ‘The most difficult of the Greek plays…’ Mitford to George Mitford 28 & 29 May 1836, SD801.

When it’s published, The Literary Gazette singles out Elizabeth’s ‘A Romance of the Ganges’ from the Tableaux for praise.

p. 95

‘All that is painful in her shyness…’ Mitford to Lady Dacre 3 July 1836, SD804. ‘Small neighbourhood…’ quoted from ‘Introduction’, by Anne Thackeray Ritchie, to Mary Russell Mitford’s Our Village (London: Macmillan, 1893), p. 1.

Lady Dacre’s circle: Harriet Kramer Linkin, ‘Mary Tighe and the Coterie of Women Poets in Psyche’ in Jacqueline M. Labbe, ed, The History of British Women’s Writing, 1750–1830, vol. 5 (London: Palgrave, 2010), pp. 303–304. Cambridge University database bizarrely states that Lady Dacre (1768–1854) ‘wrote as an amateur in the Romantic period’: as if a respectable woman could then write in any other way. http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?formname=r&person_id=dacrba&heading=c [retrieved 7 March 2019]. This network also has connections with literary men including Mary Tighe’s cousin George, by now a friend of the Shelleys and living in Italy with Mary Wollstonecraft’s mentee Lady Mountcashell.

‘Depend upon it…’ Mitford to William Harness July 1836, SD803. ‘Of course the poverty…’ Mitford to Lady Dacre 3 July 1836, SD804.

p. 96

‘If events lead her…’ SD804.

FOURTH FRAME

p. 98

Luce Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman, trans. Gillian G. Gill (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 125.

BOOK FIVE

Epigraph

AL Bk 8, L. 44.

p. 99

Coughs: EBB to Mitford, a Tuesday in January 1838, #606; EBB to Boyd mid-January 1838, #609; EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks, c.29 Jan 1838, #611.

p. 100

‘Chimneys…’ EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks, 29 September 1837, #590. An egg on 22 July 1837, the chick hatches on 16 August 1837. EBB to Mitford 22 July 1837, #577; EBB to Julia Martin 16 August 1837, #583. #606. Critique: EBB to Kenyon c.February 1838, #614. Civil List: in 1835, EBB’s cousin Arabella Butler married Ralph Gosset, son of recently knighted Sir William, a former MP. ‘My dear Love…’ Mitford to EBB 1 February 1838, #612.

p. 101

‘I have already had two proof sheets…’ EBB to Boyd 26 March 1838, #620. ‘Valpy is giving up…’ EBB to Boyd 27 February 1838, #615. ‘No more mss…’ EBB to Kenyon, Wednesday c.March 1838, #616. ‘Late remorse…’ EBB to Mitford, a Monday in early April 1838, #621. ‘Rather a dramatic lyric…’ EBB to Mitford, a Monday in March 1838, #617. She’s particularly proud that she managed to reconstruct the whole first part after it was lost by the publisher Colburn. ‘Then, would come…’ #616. ‘Incapable…’ EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks c.13 March 1838, #619. ‘Grand angelic sin…’ #616.

p. 102

Henrietta informs Sam about the move: Henrietta Moulton-Barrett to Sam Moulton-Barrett 14 & 15 November 1837, SD835. ‘How the waves…’ #619. ‘My strength flags…’ #617.

‘Had no idea…’ The Atlantic barrier, so useful in concealing the disgusting reality of the Jamaican planter ship, also prevents genuine personal contact: an exchange of letters takes roughly two months. A month before his brother’s death, Edward’s letters to him are full of trivia about shipping him gifts: Edward B MB to Samuel B MB 15 November 1837, SD836; Edward B MB to Samuel B MB c.20 November 1837, SD837.

The legal conveyance of Uncle Sam’s gift to EBB was completed posthumously. Edward B MB to Samuel B MB 24 October 1837, SD832. Boddingtons wrote to Uncle Sam a week after his death, asking for his signature on the Bill of Sale: Boddington & Co. to Samuel B MB 30 December 1837, SD844.

‘Uncle brother friend & nurse…’ #619. ‘Kindness melted…’ Henrietta MB to Samuel MB 14–15 November 1837, SD835.

Value calculated according to the Office for National Statistics composite price index. http://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1838?amount=200; http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/#currency-result [retrieved 11 March 2019].

Sam is coming home ‘for a few months’ only; #619.

p. 103

Sam tells his favourite sister his itinerary: Samuel MB to Henrietta MB 21 November 1838, SD956. ‘On account of the gloominess…’ EBB to Julia Martin 7 December 1836, #546. ‘Disappointed… reconciled…’ SD956.

‘Ghost of paint…’ EBB to Mitford 23–24 April 1838, #627. ‘Little slip of sitting room…’ EBB to Mitford 1 June 1838, #636. They stay at number 129 with Ann Smith, daughter of Dr Adam Clarke and a friend of Mr Boyd’s.

p. 104

‘We are dying…’ is admittedly the letter in which Papa announces Bro’s probable drowning. Edward B MB to