Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace

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Headstrong and widowed at 31, Isabella Walker became Mrs. Henry Robinson in 1844. After her first husband's sudden death left her with nothing, she married a successful civil engineer, Henry, who often traveled and was emotionally distant. Left to her own devices in Edinburgh's elite society, Isabella began documenting her innermost thoughts and her infatuation with the married Dr. Edward Lane in her diary. Over five years, her passionate and suggestive entries accumulated until, in 1858, Henry discovered the diary and, believing it to be evidence of infidelity, sought a divorce on the grounds of adultery. This was a groundbreaking case, as divorce had been illegal in England, and their trial threatened the very foundations of Victorian society. It introduced the unsettling image of a middle-class wife who was restless and seeking fulfillment. Isabella's diary, read in court, echoed the scandal of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," which was too provocative to be translated into English until the 1880s. Kate Summerscale masterfully recreates this Victorian world, exploring the tensions between a frustrated wife's desires and the rigid societal norms surrounding marriage, privacy, and female sexuality.