Menu
The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives
Next in the queue
60
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
40/100Critics
81/100Scholars
Author:
Diane Johnson, Vivian Gornick
Publisher:
NYRB Classics
Date:
June 23, 2020
A classic of alternative biography and feminist writing, this reissued book gives due to a "lesser" figure of history, Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith, who was brilliant, unconventional, and at odds with the constraints of Victorian life.
What The Reviewers Say
First published in 1972, the book passed into obscurity and has been happily reissued this month, fresh as ever — a seething, stylish reclamation of a forgotten life.
The originality and jazzy brilliance of The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith will be immediately apparent to anyone who starts Diane Johnson’s deeply felt portrait of a vivacious 19th-century woman virtually erased from history.
A sad story, an immorally moral tale, perhaps only a memento (Diane Johnson is the novelist) with the Biographer as demure imitator and commentator who has artfully synchronized the contemporary materials of all these LESSER LIVES. They will include of course Meredith's Modern Love celebrating the disharmonious 'union of this ever-diverse pair' and Mary Ellen's Commonplace Book wherein you will find that 'the wicked are in earnest and the good are lukewarm.' A restorative, charming pastiche..
