topics: |  fiction | biography | poetry

New York Times Notable Book.
    in 1844 at the age of twenty-three, Elizabeth Wilson becomes the private
maid of Elizabeth Moulton Barrett, a sickly poetess. She soon becomes
indispensable to her mistress, and helps engineer her secret marriage 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.

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 is highlighted.
On the whole 548 pages is a lot of time to spend reading about it.