Elizabeth Wilson was one of several daughters of a poor Newcastle widow in 1844 when, at the age of twenty-three, she took the opportunity to travel to London to become the private maid of Elizabeth Moulton Barrett, a sickly poetess. She soon became indispensable to her mistress, and helped to engineer the secret marriage of Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning.

Wilson moved with the Brownings to Italy. She fell in love and married an Italian. The Brownings proved to be unjust employers-- they underpaid Wilson, and forced her to abandon her child. Still, she remained loyal to them until her mistress' death.

LADY'S MAID is based on the few facts that are known about Elizabeth Barrett Browning's real-life servant. Forster writes in Wilson's voice, that of an uneducated Englishwoman in the mid-nineteenth century. As a result, much of the dialogue seems stilted. Forster often uses the device of letters between Wilson and her family to tell her story. This reduces most of the action to talk and makes the plot seem dull.

The plight of woman servants in Victorian society was terrible-- that is obvious from the bad things that happen to Wilson in this novel. Still, five hundred and forty-eight pages is a lot of time to spend reading about it. The life of Wilson the lady's maid might have been better served by an article in an academic periodical than by this ponderous tome.

(Doubleday, 1991, 548 pages, $19.95, ISBN 0-385-41792-6)


Copyright of Magill Book Reviews is the property of Salem Press and its content may not be copied without the copyright holder's express written permission except for the print or download capabilities of the retrieval software used for access. This content is intended solely for the use of the individual user.

Back to the top
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Magazine/Journal Articles
The Browning Main Page

||| Poetry | Edgar Allan Poe | Home | Young American Poets | Emily Dickinson Page | The Browning Main Page | Poetry Links | Anonymous Poetry | Children's Poetry | How to talk about a Poem | How to talk about a short story | Links | Joke | JavaScripts | Home | Favorite Authors| Sign Guestbook| Send comments about this page to erin@cswnet.com ||| Sign and View Guestbook |||