List of illustrations; The girlhood of Mary Arnold: 1851-1860;
Schooldays: 1860-1867; Oxford: 1867-1871; Stabs at fiction:
1867-1871; Marriage: 1870-1872; Marriage and Oxford: 1872-1878;
Fighting back: 1878-1880; London: 1880-1886; The right book:
1883-1884; The Elsmere ordeal: 1884-1888; Elsmere mania: 1888; The
fiction machine: 1890-1900; Families - the Arnolds: 1890-1900;
Families - the Wards: 1890-1900; Homes: 1888-1900; Respectable
genius: 1890-1900;
Health: 1890-1900; The Passmore Edwards settlement: 1892-1900;
Eleanor: 1900; Best-selling novelist, failed dramatist: 1901-1905;
Family matters: 1900-1905; Mid-Edwardian: 1906; The Testing of
Diana
Mallory: 1907; The new world: 1908; Anti-suffragist: 1909; Arnold
Ward, MP: 1910-1911; Calamities: 1912-1914; The Wards and war:
1914-1917; Soldier in skirts: 1916-1917; The end: 1918-1920; Notes;
Chronology of Mary Ward; Select bibliography; Index
A fascinating insight into the private life of a very public novelist and philanthropist
John Sutherland has taught at the universities of Edinburgh and London. He is the author of Victorian Novelists and Publishers (1976), Fiction and the Fiction Industry (1980) and The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (1989).
`To make a major biography out of a minor subject is a hard thing
to do; when it succeeds as triumphantly as this one, it deserves a
fanfare.' Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
`John Sutherland's marvellous treatment...has removed the mufflers
and brought us a human being, hugely gifted, selfish, ambitious,
wrong-headed and lovable. He is always witty, never cruel. He has
gone through the family papers with a keen and sympathetic eye; and
he thoroughly inhabits the period, its religion, its literature and
its social conventions.' Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
`Brilliant...some enthralling chapters...But the canvas never feels
overcrowded, and the pace of the story is beautifully maintained.'
Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
`lively, intelligent biography... wonderfully absorbing' New
Statesman
`a splendid life of Mrs Ward, and a convincing defence against her
many detractors' Literary Review
`John Sutherland's carefully researched...account of her life is
clearly the best yet.' Julia Briggs, Observer
`a brilliant account of why his subject is no more than a footnote
in history, of the decline of an intellectual dynasty, and of the
shifting focuses of thought from late Victorian to early 20th
Century England' Financial Times
`It's a classic book, beautifully produced, and will give profound
satisfaction to anyone who cares to read slightly off the beaten
track.' Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
'John Sutherland's admirably researched first full biography of her
life will provide a wealth of answers.'
John Moynihan, Catholic Herald
'John Sutherland's carefully researched and generally lively
account of her life is clearly the best yet.'
Julia Briggs, The Observer
'John Sutherland's lively, intelligent biography does not flinch
from the disagreeable aspects of its subject ...a wonderfully
absorbing biography.'
New Statesman & Society
'It is a compelling study. Sutherland is a natural biographer,
sensitive to his subject but never fawning, witty, erudite,
absolutely at home with the social, political and religious ideas
of the period.'
Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times
'Professor Sutherland has written a splendid life of Mrs Ward, and
a convincing defence against her many detractors.'
Charles Stephens, Literary Review
'lively, intelligent biography ... a wonderfully absorbing
biography'
Zoë Heller, New Statesman
'This is a marvellously informative book, with much to say about
the cultural context which produced the fiction of Mrs Humphry
Ward. But it is also an unexpectedly poignant account of what is
now remembered (if at all ) as a complacent or even repellent
life.'
London Review of Books
'To make a major biography out of a minor subject is a hard thing
to do; when it succeeds as triumphantly as this one, it deserves a
fanfare. John Sutherland's marvellous treatment ... he has removed
the mufflers and brought us a human being, hugely gifted, selfish,
ambitious, wrong-headed and lovable. He is always witty, never
cruel. He has gone through the family papers with a keen and
sympathetic eye; and he thoroughly inhabits the period, its
religion,
its literature and its social conventions ... brilliant ... some
enthralling chapters ... But the canvas never feels overcrowded,
and the pace of the story is beautifully maintained ... his comedy
never
denies human values and feeling ... It's a classic book,
beautifully produced, and will give profound satisfaction to anyone
who cares to read slightly off the beaten track.'
Independent on Sunday
`John Sutherland's bold disinterment of this prolific writer and
prodigious personality who towered over Victorian England makes
enthralling reading .' Independent on Sunday
'an unputdownable biography ... brilliant and sympathetic analysis
of the forces that made this Big Ben of Victorian values tick'
Rebecca Fraser, Telegraph
'model biography ... a sad story, brilliantly told'
Joan Smith, The Guardian
'meticulous biography'
Michelene Wandor, Sunday Times
'important book'
Elizabeth Longford, Spectator
'one of the most engaging aspects of this book is its author's
unquestionable sense of amusement, indulgently exercised towards
his subject and her world ... John Sutherland's splendid
re-creation shows that Mrs Humphrey Ward still has much to teach
us'
Times Literary Supplement
'From apparently unpromising materials John Sutherland has
fashioned an unputdownable biography ... brilliant and sympathetic
analysis of the forces that made this Big Ben of Victorian values
tick'
Rebecca Fraser, Daily Telegraph
'Sutherland's book, which can claim to be the definitive Life,
makes for absorbing reading and is full of rewarding
observations.'
Neville Braybrooke, The Tablet
'model biography ... Hers is a sad story, brilliantly told.'
Joan Smith, The Guardian
'Sutherland's book, which can claim to be the definitive Life,
makes for absorbing reading and is full of rewarding
observations.'
Neville Braybrooke, The Tablet
'John Sutherland writes well ... on the driving, ambitious,
overbearing, courageous personality of Mrs Humphrey Ward. John
Sutherland has disinterred her and in this biography she lives
again.'
Features & Arts, World Service in English Book Talks
'a fascinating insight into late-Victorian preoccupations'
Isabel Colegate, Daily & Sunday Telegraph
'a fascinating study of how much a woman could and could not do in
a Victorian-Edwardian era'
Guernsey Evening Press & Star
'Among biographies, Mrs Humphry Ward, by John Sutherland is
outstanding. This book rescues her from undeserved oblivion as a
character and representative of her age.'
John Grigg, The Times
'brilliantly witty and wide-ranging study'
Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
'this excellent biography by John Sutherland puts her life and work
in a more balanced perspective'
Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, Church Times
'absorbing life of Mrs Humphry Ward'
English Studies, Volume 72, Number 6, December 1991
'John Sutherland tells a wonderful tale - witty, shapely, laconic,
plausible, dramatic ... His steady gaze reveals the more because it
is so courteous - not indulgent, nor over gallant, but somehow
gentlemanly.'
Cicely Palser Havely, The Open University, Notes and Queries,
September 1992
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