Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice

by Paula Byrne

From acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne, the sensational true tale that inspired the major motion picture Belle (May 2014) starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Miranda Richardson, Emily Watson, Penelope Wilton, and Matthew Goode—a stunning story of the first mixed-race girl introduced to high society England and raised as a lady.  

The illegitimate daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy and an enslaved African woman, Dido Belle was sent to live with her great-uncle, the Earl of Mansfield, one of the most powerful men of the time and a leading opponent of slavery. Growing up in his lavish estate, Dido was raised as a sister and companion to her white cousin, Elizabeth. When a joint portrait of the girls, commissioned by Mansfield, was unveiled, eighteenth-century England was shocked to see a black woman and white woman depicted as equals. Inspired by the painting, Belle vividly brings to life this extraordinary woman caught between two worlds, and illuminates the great civil rights question of her age: the fight to end slavery.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Historical, 18th Century, British Literature, Biography Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014

About the author

Paula Byrne is a British author and biographer. She is married to writer Jonathan Bate, the Shakespeare scholar.

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

This ends up being, more than anything else, a short biography of William Murray, Lord Mansfield. He was Chief Justice of England for more than thirty years, and responsible for some famous rulings on cases that involved slaves, one of which de facto abolished slavery on English soil.
We don't know that much about Dido Elizabeth Belle so Byrne fills in the blanks by talking about Lord Mansfield and the history of slavery in the British Empire. We know that she was the daughter of a (former?) slave and a British Navy Captain, that she lived with Lord Mansfield and his wife until his death, and subsequenlty married a French servant and settled in Pimlico with two children.
As Dido's biography, this book is certainly frustrating, because we simply can't know her intimately, and it almost feels unnecessary (not because her story doesn't need to be told, on the contrary, we need way more narratives about POCs in Europe; but because I've read Wikipedia entries that were more substantial than this book). Yet it was a pleasant read, and a good reminder of what was going on in the wider world at that time, beucase it's so often forgotten while reading Georgian literature or watching movies set in that era.
I really like Byrne as a writer, I just wish we knew more about the life of Dido (and I'm gonna watch the heck out of the film, but I'll go in knowing that most of the stuff it depicts is invented).

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Commissioned by the producers of the new movie Belle, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne aims to reveal the true story behind the main characters in the movie: Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy and an African slave, and her great-uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (1705-93) and Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice is both a companion volume to the popular movie and a time capsule into the turbulent abolition movement in the late eighteenth-century England.

Inspired by the 1779 portrait of Dido and her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray, screenwriter Misan Sagay has written a compelling story based on facts she first learned of while visiting the 2007, Slavery and Justice Exhibition. Dido and Elizabeth were Lord Mansfield’s wards and raised together at Caen Wood House, now know as Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath near London. While the screenplay is based on actual facts, it also incorporates a fictional narrative worthy of a seventh Jane Austen novel. In contrast, Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice is an historical account of the people and times and not a novelization of the movie.

Movies (and novels) based on real people and events always intrigue me, especially those set in my favorite time period, Georgian England. I was aware of the Jane Austen connection to this story from a JASNA Persuasions Online article Ambiguous Cousinship: Mansfield Park and the Mansfield Family, by Christine Kenyon Jones. We know from Austen’s letters that she met Dido’s cousin Lady Elizabeth Finch-Hatton (nee Murray) several times from 1805-1813 while visiting her elder brother Edward in Kent. If Lady Finch-Hatton or Austen’s family revealed the story of the two cousins is uncertain, but she would have known of their guardian Lord Mansfield’s significant 1772 ruling against slavery. There are also many striking similarities beyond her use of Mansfield in the title of her third novel. Was Austen’s heroine Fanny Price inspired by the circumstances of Dido Elizabeth Belle and the strong winds against slavery in the air? Fanny is not black, but she is a slave to the Bertram’s all the same. Janeites will be also pleased to find that Byrne has included an appendix detailing Jane Austen’s Mansfield Connection.

Dido’s story begins justly with the inspiration to the movie—the girl in the picture. This is the perfect setup for those (like me) who are fascinated by portraiture during this era. Attributed to Johann Zoffany, who has also been mis-credited for a portrait of a young girl strongly thought to be Jane Austen,the painting is indicative of this time portraying so much more than the subject’s likeness. Through composition, color, light and iconography the artist reveals their sitter’s personality and social status through choice of clothing, position and attitude, objects that they hold or are placed near them, and the landscape that they are situated within. However, this portrait of two young women is significant beyond its subject’s beauty, or its artistic merits; it displays two finely dressed young women, one white and one black, positioned as equals. This mixed-race pairing, when African people where considered inferior and presumed to be slaves because of the color of their skin, would have been shocking to eighteenth-century society. The fact that Lord Mansfield commissioned the portrait of his two nieces together is a testament to his beliefs and his underlying commitment to aid, through his rulings on British law, the abolition of slavery. That is the axis of the movie and this book.

In subsequent chapters Byrne continues to reveal what is known of Dido’s father, Sir John Lindsay (1737-1788), a captain in the Royal Navy and later Rear Admiral of the Red, and her mother Maria Belle, his prisoner after capturing a Spanish ship bound for the West Indies. Chapters continue on William Murray, the most distinguished and powerful lawyer of his day, sugar plantations in the English colonies, Liverpool as a hub of import and despair, the anti-slavery movement, Murray and the Zong massacre, and the eventual marriage of Dido and her death.

While much is known about Britain’s slave trade economy during this time, and Murray’s legal decisions that helped to abolish slavery, history reveals only basic information about our main subject, Dido Elizabeth Belle. She was after all, not a public figure, but a mixed race woman during a time of great prejudice and persecution who was educated to be a lady, yet was not welcome in that social sphere. Her personal story had been forgotten with time—even by the Murray family who still own the portrait. Until the 1980′s, they assumed that the young black woman next to their kinswoman Lady Elizabeth Murray was her servant. Bell: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice thoughtfully reveals how Dido’s story is both emotionally moving and historically significance.

Byrne’s research and writing was as enjoyable as her approach to The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. She has the ability to mine gold from dry facts and spin them into a bewitching web for the modern reader. While the historical details about the slave trade and the abolition movement were very interesting, there is very little detail about the main subject, Dido Elizabeth Belle. No letters, no diaries or family recollections of Dido survive. Only historical documentation: her christening, her marriage, her inheritances and her death. At first I felt deceived by the title and cover. Was this really her story? No, in all honestly, it is not. But on deeper reflection, the fictionalized movie gave me what I craved: the personal drama, romance and moving character arc. In this instance it is her portrait, the people and history surrounding her that tell us the story of a young woman who changed the outcome of slavery by just being herself.

Laurel Ann, Austenprose

[MAP · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book kind of reminds me of The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London in that the title is pretty misleading - it should have been called The Chief Justice, Sharp, Sugar Plantations, the Slave Trade and By the Way Mansfield raised a niece whose mother was a slave.

That said, it was a GOOD book, and it didn't drag, but the fact is (kind of like the book Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford - I'm referencing a lot of my other reviews!) there isn't enough about Dido Belle to fill a book - there's not even enough to fill 2 entire chapters - she gets approximately 1 and a half.

If you're looking for something following the life of Dido Belle, go watch the movie, however historically inaccurate it may be. If you want to get a sense of the context in which Dido Belle was raised, this is a good book. It's just not the biography the title promises.

[Anne Rioux · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. After visiting Kennwood House in Hampstead, London last summer and learning about Dido Belle (and seeing a copy of the famous portrait of her and her cousin), I was intrigued. We watched the movie when we got home and then I read this book. Although Byrne was asked to write it by the film's producer, it's not a movie book. It's a fascinating history of the real people in Dido's life, particularly her adoptive father, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of England. Not much is known directly about Dido, but Byrne did her best to flesh out her life and her world, and I found the history of Mansfield's rulings on slavery fascinating. It's always interesting to know the history behind the story you see on the screen, and this book fits that bill. At the end is a tantalizing examination of how these characters may have inspired Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I gave it 4 stars because it feels rushed at times rather than the finely crafted narrative it could have been.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s hard for me to give a low rating to a book that wasn’t necessarily bad, but this one was really a disappointment for me. Working from an unusual painting showing the illegitimate daughter of a British Navy Captain and a slave woman, I was really hoping the book had some detailed information about the daughter, Dido Elizabeth Belle. However, there is not much known about Dido so most of the book focused on her Uncle who raised her. As Chief Justice for England, Lord Mansfield was involved in many important cases that lead to the eventual banning of slavery from England and eventually the English colonies. The book had some interesting other elements including speculation about the influence of Dido and the debate over slavery on Jane Austen and her works, but grouping all this together around Dido when so little is presented about her life just didn’t work great for me.

[Alisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, a good reason to pick up this book is that you have seen the exquisitely crafted 2014 movie "Belle." If you haven't, do. Anyway, the movie is based on the true story of a mixed race girl being acknowledged and brought up by the aristocratic white half of her family. In 18TH CENTURY BRITAIN. Kind of a big deal.

Unfortunately, all we factually know of her today comes from a lovely and intriguing painting, a few legal documents, the household account books, and the diary of one acquaintance. The story is there, but the gaps are tantalizing.

That's why this book has to focus more on her uncle/guardian, Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice of England. He was called on several times in his professional career to rule on slaves' rights...a touchy subject, given that the economy of the British empire was growing ever more dependent on its slaves. While he couldn't legislate new laws, he could interpret what already existed as humanely as possible. His rulings paved the way for the abolition of the slave trade. This stand becomes more meaningful knowing that he had a mixed race niece at home.

There are enough source documents to confirm that Dido Belle did have a privileged standing in her white family. She wasn't just a glorified servant. She was a daughter of the house. She was accustomed to spend time with them. She was educated enough to have beautiful and clear handwriting (a couple samples actually exist!). Lord Mansfield kept adding codicils to his will, leaving her money, then worrying that it wasn't enough and leaving her more money. An older cousin also left her a legacy, as a "mark of regard."

What I like about this story, both as a movie and real-life history, is what it illustrates about people. In that time and place, no white person was obligated to care for an illegitimate "mulatto." There were no repercussions: the rules gave you every right to close your eyes. But the Mansfields made their own decision to be decent.

I think that's awesome.

[Bronwyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Hedy's Folly this book was interesting but I felt misled. It's supposedly about Dido and the Lord Chief Justice. It's not really. It's mostly about Lord Mansfield and the cases he oversaw that probably helped lead to the abolition of slavery in England.

Most of the book, like I said, deals with Lord Mansfield's life and career. We're also introduced to others who were against slavery in England. Byrne also discusses slavery in the British West Indies, and what slave ships were like. She gives us some information on other free blacks and those of mixed race to hypothesize what it was like for Dido in England because we just don't have the information to know for sure.

What is actually about Dido? Well, there's the opening chapter looking at the paining of her and her cousin. I found that really interesting, breaking down all the symbolism within the painting. There's also the last chapter that discusses Dido's life after Mansfield's death based on marriage records, etc. Again very interesting. But if you're looking for a book about Dido, this really isn't it, even though it's still an interesting book.

[Ceri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review was first posted on Babblings of a Bookworm: http://babblingsofabookworm.blogspot....

A while ago I saw the film ‘Belle’ which tells the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle. The inspiration for this film was a portrait, showing Lady Elizabeth Murray and what was originally thought to be a black servant girl. However, in the 1980s it was realised that the black girl in the picture had much higher status than that. In fact, she was Lady Elizabeth’s cousin, daughter of Captain John Lindsay. Dido’s mother was a slave. Dido was brought to live with her childless uncle and aunt at the age of around five. The family she lived with were a noble family, which gave Dido a unique status in society.

While officially there wasn’t slavery in Britain, many high up families made money supported by either the slave trade itself, or the labour of slaves in far away plantations. Most black or mixed race people living in Britain in the 1700s would be ex-slaves or servants. However, Dido had a status high above that, yet not as high as her cousin, firstly due to the fact that she was illegitimate, and secondly due to her race. The uncle who took Dido in wasn’t just any gentleman – he was Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice, the highest judge in England, and one who happened to specialise in maritime insurance law and hence would deal with cases involving slaves. Lord Mansfield made decisions that paved the way for the abolition of slavery, and there were some that said this was due to the influence of one of his much-loved adoptive daughters, Dido Belle.

There is very little known about Dido, aside from the date of her christening, other church records and a number of bequests that were made to her by her family, so I knew the filmmakers took artistic licence with her story. Some of it was fascinating, the look at how she was in such a unique place in society, above the servants, yet below her class of society as a whole, and there was an exploration of how different people may have reacted to her, and how it might have made her feel that was really touching. Some of the things that are portrayed in the film went beyond the bounds of believability for me, due to the restricted place in society of women in general, and Dido in particular. It wasn't clear to me which bits were true and which weren’t, so I was pleased to see this book by Paula Byrne, which ties in with the film.

This is a factual book, and although not much is known about Dido’s life, Byrne sets what is known in context with events and societal views at the time and infers what she can from it - the result is a book that I found extremely interesting, although some parts I found hard to read, due to the subject matter. The concept of slavery is one which I find morally abhorrent. The idea that people could be owned, could be objectified, that people with feelings could be treated so disgracefully by other human beings is an extremely disturbing part of history. I found the parts that detailed slave treatment on ships, particularly the sexual treatment of women and children as young as 8 quite hard to read because I found it just so upsetting.

One of the most dedicated fighters against slavery was a man called Granville Sharp. He worked tirelessly for the cause, taking up a number of cases and arguing that under English law there were no slaves, no property in persons and that all persons were subject to the protection of England’s laws, including the Habeas Corpus Act, relating to unlawful detention of a person, which is still in force today. A pivotal case, not shown in the film, was the Somerset case, in 1772. Here, a slave called James Somerset was brought to England by his master, Charles Stewart. Somerset escaped, but was recaptured and sold to a slave ship bound for the West Indies. The case was brought by people trying to resolve the status of slaves in England once and for all. Did slavery exist in Great Britain, or didn’t it?

The question of slavery must have been an extremely thorny issue for Mansfield. On the one hand, a large section of the country’s economy relied on the profits of slavery. There were not only slave owners, many of whom were extremely influential, but also an industry reliant on the profits of trading and shipping slaves, and people who traded in the commodities that slaves helped to produce. There were insurance policies bought and sold to insure the slaves while they were being transported. On the other hand, there was obviously a moral view too – is it right that people should be treated as less than human due to the hue of their skin? Do the ancient laws of England such as habeas corpus, not apply to black people? If a person is no longer a slave the second they set foot on British soil was there a danger that all escaped slaves would flee to Britain for sanctuary and the country be overrun with immigrants? For Mansfield there may have been the additional aspect of Dido to consider – if he ruled that black people were property and that it was lawful to recapture a slave to resell, could she have been in danger of kidnap? She had been born to a slave, and hence was technically a slave herself.

It is not known exactly what was said by Mansfield while he delivered the verdict, but several accounts state that he used the word ‘odious’ to describe the state of slavery, and stated that the law of England didn’t allow or approve the treatment Somerset had received, and therefore Somerset was discharged from the court. Later, Mansfield clarified that what this meant was that it was not legal to forcibly take the slave and carry him abroad in England, and that nothing had been ruled relating to the concept of slavery, however:
“The tide of public opinion had changed. A great moral question had been resolved. On English soil, no man was a slave. Mansfield, whether he liked it or not, was perceived as the man who had made slavery illegal in England.”

This case was more important than the one featured in the film, where Mansfield had to decide on an insurance case relating to the slave ship, the Zong. Here, a slave trader had claimed for the loss of some slaves in transit. The slaves had been killed by their captors. However, this horrible massacre in itself wasn’t illegal, if it was done to save the entire ship, which is what was claimed, as they had run out of drinking water. If the slaves had died of natural causes such as sickness, the insurance company wouldn’t pay out, but if the crew had been forced to kill them to save the whole craft then the insurance cover should be valid. The film doesn’t represent this case entirely accurately, the pivotal deciding legal issue wasn’t quite the same as in the film, and in fact a judgement wasn’t made as it was moved to a retrial which never took place as the plaintiff dropped his claim. I found the clarification of the true facts very interesting and helpful. I knew that the filmmakers would have taken artistic licence with Dido’s life, but I wouldn’t have expected them to have done it in relation to the court cases, so I was glad to have this clarified.

Following these sorts of cases public opinion grew and grew for the abolition of slavery. Ordinary people began to boycott sugar usage, as many slaves were working on sugar plantations, and there were high-profile supporters of the cause, such as Josiah Wedgewood, who made anti-slavery plaques and pendants. William Cowper, the poet, wrote this in 1788:

“I pity them greatly, but I must be mum,
For how could we do without sugar and rum?
Especially sugar, so needful we see?
What? Give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea!

There are a number of examples in the book of things which created a snowball effect leading to the 1807 Act for the Abolition of the Slave trade. In the meantime, we know that both Lord and Lady Mansfield died, and Dido married, in 1793. Her husband had the same name as in the film, but was of an entirely different profession. How happy they were and whether it was a love match or an arranged marriage is entirely unknown. However, the girl who had been brought up in the absence of her parents was able to become a mother herself, to three sons, of which two survived.

There is a section at the end of the book relating just to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, which I found extremely interesting. Austen was actually acquainted with Dido’s cousin, Lady Elizabeth Murray, by then Lady Finch, and it seems more than coincidental that the novel of Austen that actually references the slave trade is called Mansfield Park. There are a number of other references that may point to a link, such as the name of one of the characters in the book. Austen would probably have been aware of a slave captain, by the name of Robert Norris, who was a supporter of the trade. This is also the surname of Fanny Price’s oppressor, a woman who holds far too much power at Mansfield Park, the horrible Mrs Norris. Some would argue that there are more references than that, such as Fanny's lifestyle, etc.

Byrne points out an idea that had never occurred to me before – on plantations where the owners were absent the treatment of slaves was generally far worse. Sir Thomas Bertram is an absentee planter, who is obliged to travel to Antigua to sort problems on that estate, but his absentee parenting style has also caused problems within his family in England, and his physical absence at this time allows the moral vacuum in his home to cause longlasting damage to his children.

Since so little is known about Dido Elizabeth Belle this isn’t really her history, so it's a little misleading to say this is the true story of her life, but her legacy is not so much what she did as what she possibly inspired by being a much loved member of Lord Mansfield’s family. This book is more a book on the abolition of the slave trade with particular focus on Lord Mansfield and his family. It’s a book I very much enjoyed, once I’d got past the parts which I found a little upsetting. If you’ve watched the film I would definitely recommend reading this, just so you’re clear on what is fact and what is fiction, but I think it would be well worth reading even if you have no interest in the film. I read this on kindle, and just to warn you, the book finishes around 70% due to all the annotations and references.

[Mari · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a disappointment..., this book is not really about Belle at all.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had put this on my library list after reading about Dido Belle in a Jane Austen biography. It wasn't quite what I expected, I didn't know just how much we don't know about her.

[QNPoohBear · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is touted as a companion to the movie Belle, about a mixed-race girl who was adopted by her wealthy (white) relatives and raised as their daughter. The actual book is less about Dido Belle and more about the history of slavery in her lifetime. Not much is known about Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate daughter of a British Naval Captain and a slave woman. What we do know is gleamed from a portrait of Dido and her cousin/adopted sister Elizabeth Murray and one highly prejudiced, negative account by Thomas Hutchinson (the Loyalist ex-mayor of Boston, Massachusetts) and Lord Mansfield's will. I hope more is uncovered in the future because hers is a remarkable story. It becomes obvious that she was no mere servant or even a companion but a loved and cherished member of the family. Yet, what options were open to her? I was pleased to read that in real life she was treated as well as she appears to be in the movie, however, did her family really do the right thing by raising her as one of them? I'm not so sure, given the lack of opportunities for people of color and for women. She probably led a very sheltered life as an upper-class woman, hidden away from the horrors of slavery and the issues her adopted father presided over in court. Most of the book deals with the issue of slavery. The opening chapters are extremely graphic and not PG like the movie. The author doesn't shy away from quoting actual plantation owners' diaries where they bragged about their brutality and violence against slaves, particularly female slaves. Dido's adopted father and biological uncle, Lord Mansfield, was a man of honor but his honor made him a bit wishy washy in court. He was called on to preside over several controversial cases where slaves were kidnapped against their will after believing themselves to be free on English soil. Mansfield handled each case with care not to offend the wealthy merchants who made his career. Even so, the abolitionists claimed victory and he is celebrated as the judge who took a stand against slavery in England.

Even with a lack of information, this book is worth reading as a companion to the movie for the casual reader. The author explores little known sources and updates her research that appeared in The Real Jane Austen. If you're searching for in-depth information about the history of slavery and the slave trade or a biography of Lord Mansfield, look elsewhere. If you're curious about the story behind the movie, this slim book does what it intended. After all, one can always look up some of her sources as read more if necessary.

[Jane]

This is a frustratingly shallow and repetitive book about the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle.

From listening to the Print Run podcast, I knew agents etc could commission books, but I never thought about a movie studio doing so to drum up interest in an upcoming movie. Which is fine, I guess. I liked the movie when I watched it years ago, but I had a lot of issues with this book.

So, we know very, very little about Dido. That's fine. I mean, it sucks, but I don't have a gripe with a movie imagining what her life might have been like. The problem with this book, written by a white woman, is that she makes lots of charitable suppositions regarding Dido's relationship with her white family and even her literal conception.

I mentioned in a status update that a woman who is a slave cannot consent to sex by her literal owner. Like, I think this book came out in 2014? But still, wild, wild claim to make or hedge around making. And she hedged it A LOT. She also touched very lightly upon a lot of subjects that would be really interesting if gone into more depth. Boycotting sugar because of slavery, abolition, lives of Black citizens of England. But Byrne only barely touches on these subjects. Which, I guess I get. This isn't a book for actually getting into the nitty gritty, it's to promote a movie.

I was more frustrated than not reading this, because some of it felt like a high school report on a historical figure in how it was written. Again, repetitive and only barely touching upon more interesting facets of this history. Byrne would explain Jane Austen's novels with equal attention to the context of slavery and the colonies. Which, I love Austen but like time and place! And it makes me hesitant to read Byrne's biography on Austen.

There were some chapters on various cases and incidents that make me want to read more books on those specifically. I wouldn't recommend this because of the shallow nature of the writing of both Dido and this time period. I'm not surprised but a little surprised that they wouldn't have asked a Black historian to write this, because it would have benefited a lot from that perspective, rather than the white "well, it is what it is, they did their best" perspective.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

That I thoroughly enjoyed this book and read it in less than a day is testimony to the skill of the author. It's also testimony to the fact that it's a relatively short book and very light on detail. In truth, there is not enough here to justify calling this a biography. This is not a book about Dido herself - there is simply not enough trace of her in the historical record to write little more than a paragraph on her. And that's a shame, a real shame, because a full biography of this woman would be fascinating. Dido occupied a relatively unique position in Georgian society - a black woman, the illegitimate daughter of a slave and a naval captain, raised in luxury and privilege by the highest legal authority in the land, a man who may have been influenced by his affection for her in deciding a case that opened the door to the abolition of the slave trade.

Unfortunately, that's about all you could possibly write about Dido herself, and the real significance there is less about her and more about her relationship with Lord Mansfield. The bulk of this book, well-written as it is, explores the context of her life - the abolition movement, Lord Mansfield and his famous ruling in the Somerset case that opened the door to abolition, the abolition movement itself and the famous names like Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce. But it's not about Dido. Her story is yet another casualty of the prejudice of the day: she is all but invisible to history.

I'll be curious to see the film based on this book - it can surely bear little relation to historical fact, simply because there is so little historical fact when it comes to Dido's life. I suspect artistic licence will have run rampant, but when has that ever stopped film-makers?

[Mary Pagones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dido Belle is immortalized in history in the famous portrait in which she is portrayed with her white cousin Elizabeth. While Elizabeth looks, frankly, starchy and mannered and not much fun at all, the image of Dido is striking. She is alive, vibrant, and appears to be simultaneously in motion yet sharing a secret with the reader. Who was this woman?

Unfortunately, some of the reviews of this book are rather poor simply because there isn't enough to really construct a narrative of Dido's life. However, Byrne still has constructed an engaging, informative, and often moving text about the anti-slavery movement in Britain. Dido was born of an aristocratic man and (probably) an enslaved woman. Sent to be raised by her great-uncle the Lord Chief Justice, she was educated in the accomplishments of a lady, yet had a somewhat ambiguous role in the house--she was part of the family, but had some servant's duties (tending the dairy), was not always present in company, and could not be on the "marriage market." Yet she at times served as the amanuensis of Lord Mansfield, and was his particular friend and favorite. There were whispers she influenced his famous decision which was interpreted as abolishing slavery on British soil, although Byrne notes that Mansfield hadn't wanted to decide on the case at all, and tried to rule it on as narrow grounds as possible, to limit the precedent it set.

Mansfield himself is thus an ambiguous figure, as kind as he was to Dido personally, and the book is a rich portrait of how nuanced attitudes were to Black people in Britain. On one hand, the most barbaric and brutal slavery was practiced in the colonies, and the triangle trade resulted in the enslavement of innocent human beings to enrich the Mother Country. Yet on British soil, there was intermarriage between lower class persons of different races and in general more tolerance of color differences in skin than in the Americas.

The book ends with some limited speculation of how Dido may have inspired Fanny Price, Austen's heroine who is likewise betwixt and between social worlds and kept as a companion for much of the novel to those to whom she is distantly related yet who are regarded as her social superiors.

All in all, the book packs an impressive amount of history in a short span of pages (as does all of Byrne's biographies).

[Rachel Nesmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a wonderful jumping off point for learning more about the abolition of the slave trade in England. It lays out all of the information that we know about Dido Belle and introduces us to her contemporaries in the hopes of filling in some of the gaps in our knowledge of her life. I have been particularly interested in the story of Dido since I first watched the movie Belle when I was a teenager and found this book to be very interesting. It’s a pretty short and easy read. It definitely leaves you wanting more, but in a good way.

[Asta Schmitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is a bit misleading. This book is about the English slave trade and the legal cases that ultimately put a stop to it. It touches on a host of people and Dido is not much more than a background character. I was hoping for the story of a black woman in Georgian Britain and this book is more about a whole lot of white people. Some of them very interesting or even heroic (Granville Sharp for instance). All in all a well-written and interesting book but not as promised: more like a general history lesson than Dido's life story.

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Byrne was tasked with fleshing out the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, who appeared in a 1779 double portrait. Little is known of Belle, though, and so she is a peripheral character here, in her own biography.

Given the limited information available, Bryne settled instead for putting this portrait into context -- the context of time and place (and slavery); the context of Lord Mansfield, in whose household Belle was raised. I certainly can't fault Byrne for the paucity of available information, but the resulting look is perhaps a bit optimistic. Certainly she doesn't shy away from the terrible treatment of slaves, but I got the impression that she (or whoever commissioned her to write the book) really wanted this to be a happy story, to have Belle raised as the equal or near-equal of her (white, legitimate) cousin Elizabeth, at least in the eyes of Lord Mansfield and his wife.

I take no issue with Byrne's research, although in places I question her interpretations. "If you look closely," she says of the portrait, "you can see that the girl's [Belle's] left hand rests between her thighs in a provocative gesture, offering a whiff of Georgian England's stereotyping of black women as sexual creatures" (8). I'm not an art expert by any stretch of the imagination...but what I see is her left arm holding a basket of fruit. (Am I way off base here? I'm perfectly happy to be wrong, but to question such a basic statement so early in the book put on guard.) She also treats Belle's beauty as fact, based on the portrait -- and while yes, the girl in the portrait is lovely, and yes, Belle might well have been "extremely beautiful" (177), is it safe to trust a portrait artist's rendition in that respect? Wouldn't it have been in some ways in his best interest to present his subjects in a flattering light? (Again -- I'm asking.*)

An interesting read nonetheless -- I just wish there had been more to go on!

Two other interesting tidbits:
-In the early 1800s, the death rate for black slaves in Jamaica outpaced the birth rate (56).
-The Chevalier d'Eon (117-120) might call for some more reading...

*My aunt is an artist, and last time we were in the same place she tried to sketch me. "Hmm," said my sister. "I think [liralen] is prettier than you've drawn her."

"Well, that's not good," said my aunt. "You never want to make people less attractive when you draw them."

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Almost none of the faults this book has can really be laid at Paula Byrne's feet. The core issue is that it was a doomed project from the start - there is point blank not enough information available about Dido Bell to write her biography. Here is the sum total of information we have about Dido's life:

-who her parents were
-who raised her, and where
-who she married
-how many children she had
-when she died.

That's IT. Absolute bare bones. Crucially, we know no details about Dido's feelings, her movements, her actions, or her relationships. The little we do get about Dido in this book is "she MIGHT have been here" or "we THINK she did this" or "someone stopped by Kenwood and they didn't mention Dido at all, but she was probably there!" So it's not a book about Dido Belle in any significant way; she vanishes from the narrative for whole chapters at a time. The book is actually about Lord Mansfield.

And as a book about Lord Mansfield, it's . . . still not great. Because since it's ostensibly about Dido, it's limited to the years she lived with him; specifically, the focus is on the slavery cases he presided over. But EVEN THEN, Byrne is attempting to divine Mansfield's inner life from his judicial rulings, and specifically trying to draw a line between that and his relationship with his niece. And she can't. Because there's not enough there there. It's not a biography of Dido, and it's not a good biography of Mansfield and it's an incomplete telling of the history of the abolitionist movement, so I really can't recommend it for anything.

(And as to the one fault that can be laid at Byrne's feet - she goes really, really easy on Mansfield, and on Dido's father John Lindsay. A lot of excuses are made for Mansfield's more pro-slavery rulings, arguing that he just had to follow the law, so it wasn't his fault. He's like Antonin Scalia that way. And as for John Lindsay - look, we don't know and can never know the details of what happened between him and Dido's mother. But given the significantly less than zero chance that he was a rapist, I'm iffy in the extreme about Byrne gushing over how "dashing" he was.)

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel BAMBOOZLED!

Warning: if you’re expecting an interracial historical romance, unfortunately this is NOT it

I'm very thankful I borrowed “Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice” by Paula Byrne from the library, but if I had purchased this book I would definitely have BUYER’S REMORSE.
Hands down the title is misleading. As a reader I assumed the title of the book meant I would be reading a loosely based historical romance involving Dido Elizabeth Belle. Instead what I read was a historical perspective based mostly on assumptions from the analysis of historical artwork. Dido Elizabeth Belle was not the primary focus of this story. The story focused more on the slave trade, slavery and a few slaves themselves in the late to mid-1700s. There was also more focus on Dido’s adopted father Lord Mansfield than Dido herself. One would assume if the title of a book is named “Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice” the primary focus would be on the life and times of Dido Elizabeth Belle, however it was not.
I did struggle to finish this story...I was bored at times.
This is the first time I have rated a book extremely low. My low rating is not because of the writing style. It is solely based on the gross misrepresentation of the title and summary of the book. I have no respect for those who deceive readers by means of deceit and misrepresentation…as a reader and consumer I’m very disappointed with those involved with the creation, distribution and marketing of this book.

[Shaunaly Higgins · Rating 2 out of 5]

While perusing through an art history book, I stumbled upon a painting that I found intriguing which led me to this book by Paula Byrne. It is, by all accounts, a very quick read complete with very light detail on Dido Elizabeth Belle herself. I was hoping to understand the woman who played a pivotal role in the abolition of slavery in 18th-century Britain however, the story leaves the reader with many unanswered questions about her personal life. Because of the beautiful and enigmatic painting of her, that currently hangs in Scone Palace in Perth, I was incredibly intrigued to delve into this book and now after having done so, I am still left itching for more information on Belle. Note: After some research, I have now come to find that very little exists about her after all :(

So on a more positive note, the writer does take great liberties documenting historical facts relating to the legal status of the English slave trade, the sugar production industry and the societal norms of the times. With that said, it wasn't exactly what I expected but I did learn some new history and that is always a good thing.

Final thought: Absolutely never judge, nor purchase, a book based on its cover! This rings especially true with this literary work.

[Bry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Instead of being called Belle this book should have been called Mansfield as it was much more a biography of Lord Mansfield, Dido's adopted father than her. This is mostly because he was one of the greatest judges ever and there is a lot of documentation on him. Whereas she was an unknown person whose own family descendants didn't even know who she was until the 1970s.

Also considering this was supposed to be a nonfiction work there was way too much supposition and interpretation on the part of the author that was unfounded and without proof. Her style of writing was disjointed and asked too many questions to cover the fact that there were no answers.

I was hoping for an honest biography of Dido Belle after seeing the movie, but apparently there just isn't enough known about her directly to fill a book. I will say though that I did greatly enjoy learning about Lord Mansfield and his place within the ending of the slave trade in England.

So yeah if you are looking for more info on Dido you will be disappointed, but if you are looking for more info on the beginning of the end of the British slave trade then you will be enlightened.

[Liriel27 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I understand the difficulty inherent in trying to write about a historical figure who was both a woman and a minority, but the speculations, attempted extrapolations, and unanswered questions get a bit tiresome. As others have remarked, this is much more focused on Mansfield (understandably - as a rich, influential white man, his story is much more likely to have been recorded and remembered than Dido Elizabeth Belle's).

Also, there is a fairly uncomfortable section postulating the willingness of Dido's mother, as viewed through the lens of other black women who became mistresses to white men and the plot of a popular contemporary play. If the power imbalance is extreme enough that your lover can literally sell you if you piss him off, I think we've left consent in the rearview. I know you want to imagine theirs as a love story, great and good, and Dido as the wanted product of a loving union, but that is a sketchy beginning, and there's nothing in the direct evidence that makes it less so.

[Lauren]

This book is certainly informative, but not on the topic that is claimed. Having watched the movie Belle, I was hoping for more background detail on the main character, but it seems little is actually known on Dido Belle’s life. This book claims to be ‘the true story’ and while it contains truths, the majority of the text deals with famous white men at the time, mainly the Earl of Mansfield, who was Dido’s uncle and adoptive parent. It is understandable of course that the information with which to fill a book on the life of Dido Belle does not exist, as she herself was not famous in her lifetime for anything in particular apart from being mixed race and being raised within a white family. However, it is a great disappointment that the book is marketed as such, and not instead for what it is: a fairly well researched history of the time, with a focus on the slave trade, and abolition.
(Also note, the author raises the question as to whether slave women could have been in love with the masters who raped them, although for a brief moment)

[Charlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

True history of who Belle was.

I have read some of the other reviews and realize that if you didn't want an accurate account of the time surrounding Belle than this is not the book for you. I personally enjoyed this book!

The author writes about the times and the happenings surrounding Belle. The reason she does this she tells us is that there really is not a lot of actual written history of Belle. Her family lord Chief Justice her surrogate father(natural great uncle) shields her from the public eye. So the author tells us what the actual accounts of the slave trade and what it means. About her father who was a captain and how and when he may of met and maybe loved Belle's mother.

I thought the book was interesting and informative and enjoyed reading and learning more of that part of history which was very unpleasant and inhuman.

Well worth reading.

[Kilian Metcalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I saw the promos for the movie, I was intrigued. I haven't seen the movie yet, but the book is interesting. Belle's adopted father was not just a prominent public figure, he was the Chief Justice of England, the highest legal authority in the land at a time when slavery was a hot topic. His adopted daughter, Belle, was the offspring of a family friend, a ship's captain, and a slave woman. Had circumstances been different, Belle would have been a slave herself, probably working in the cane field of Jamaica. Knowing her background and having her in his own household as part of the family had to have an effect on her adopted father as several pivotal cases involving slavery came before his bench.

Then there is the famous portrait of Belle and her adopted sister, Elizabeth. Her personality jumps off the canvas at us. The book gives us the story of the person behind the paint.

[Maryam · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was such a disappointing read, I ended up skimming a major chunk of it

Went into it to know more about Dido Elizabeth Belle, but it ended up being more of a biography about her father and uncle. Plus, since there isn’t enough real facts about her, sometimes random people in similar situations were brought up to give us an idea of how her life was like - even the parts about her, were most of the time mere conjectures!

There were so many other fillers irrelevant to the biography that this was supposed to be... Don’t even get me started on the 11 pages talking about sugar’s origin and the number of times Jane Austen’s books were referenced.

So, 98% of this books wasn’t about Belle, and the 2% that is, is full of speculations. Save your time, energy and money, and just google Dido Elizabeth Belle.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s not much of a historical record about Dido Belle, but Byrne uses information about Black experiences in Georgian England to imagine what her life could have been like. Dido’s mother was an enslaved Black woman, so be advised that some of Byrne’s source material includes harrowing accounts from slave ships and plantations.

Dido was the ward of Lord Mansfield, a prominent judge who slowly laid legal precedents for the abolition of the British slave trade. A special appendix explores the use of Lord Mansfield’s name in the title of a Jane Austen book, as well as the Austen family’s connections to both abolitionism and plantation owners.

[Casey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I find it astonishing that this book was published with pretty much no information about Dido. I think the most common phrase in this book was "we don't know" and that pretty much filled up the entire book. What was known about Dido could have filled one page and the rest was speculation and filler about the slave trade and other people in Dido's life that were more well known. Very disappointing and quite honestly a boring book.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a history book, not a novel, and unfortunately, little is known about the woman called Dido Elizabeth Belle. There is lot of information about the time period, the slave trade in Britain, the industry of sugar production, and Lord Mansfield. Particularly his judgement in a number of legal cases involving the rights of slaves.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh this was a good. It is by no means a light and fluffy read, but it was informative and well written. I have a feeling we will know a lot more regarding Dido Belle come to light in the years to come as she is a fascinating person to read about.

I am glad I found this book.