Zoe

by Geraldine Jewsbury

Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (22 August 1812 - 23 September 1880) was an English novelist, book reviewer and literary figure in London, best known for popular novels such as the History of Two Lives and reviews for the literary periodical the Athenaeum. Jewsbury never married, but enjoyed intimate friendships, notably with Jane Carlyle, wife of the essayist Thomas Carlyle. Jewsbury's romantic feelings for her and the complexity of their relations appear in Jewsbury's writings. She also encouraged other people, such as Walter Mantell, to try new things. Jewsbury was primarily a novelist of ideas and moral dilemmas, who sharply questioned the standard, idealised roles of wife and mother and promoted the spiritual value of work in a woman's life.

Genres: Classics, Victorian, 19th Century, Fiction, Literary Fiction, British Literature

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1845

About the author

Geraldine Jewsbury was born in Measham, then in Derbyshire, now in Leicestershire. She was the daughter of Thomas Jewsbury (d. 1840), a cotton manufacturer and merchant, and his wife Maria, née Smith, (d. 1819). The family moved to Manchester in 1818, after her father's business failed. After her mother died, she was brought up by her sister Maria Jane Jewsbury. In 1841 Geraldine Jewsbury met the Carlyles. Thomas Carlyle pronounced her "one of the most interesting young women I have seen for years, delicate sense & courage looking out of her small sylph-like figure." Jewsbury has earned a place in literature in three respects: as a novelist, as a critic and publisher's reader, and as a figure in London literary life. Jewsbury was primarily a novelist of ideas and moral dilemmas.

Reviews

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 3.5. I didn't like this as much as the Half Sisters, another of her novel's that I've read. The pacing wasn't always good, and the book spans a very long period of time, several decades, meaning it's often very zoomed out in approach. However, I really enjoyed its exploration of Victorian religion, especially Catholicism, and the comparison of two people's very different lives.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written in 1845, but at times the insights, the attitudes, the irony, and even the language all feel very modern. At the same time it is full of high melodrama (people are overtaken by sudden death, and the female characters tend to respond to emotional upheavals by lying prostrate on the floor). The structure is a bit wobbly (for example, one of the main characters, a priest who lost his faith in a way which at least some readers will identify with - not because of a woman but because of honest and rational questioning - disappears only to return magically at the end. The characters are all interesting and well-drawn but even though the central character had an affair with Mirabeau (yes, that Mirabeau!) the major political upheavals of the outside world don't appear to impinge, even though the Mirabeau connection would put the date of the events at just before the French Revolution. Geraldine Jewsbury is a writer who is too little known nowadays although in her heyday her writing was acclaimed, even though she was regarded as scandalous.

[Zoë · Rating 3 out of 5]

Those Victorians take a wild lot of words to say what they mean to say! Read mainly due to my namesake and the romantic description.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was Jewsbury's first novel, begun as a collaboration between herself and Elizabeth Paulet, with criticism by Jane Welsh Carlyle, but finished by Jewsbury.

It's overwritten in spots, but powerful and undoubtedly shocking to her readers, as Jewsbury portrays the passion between a married woman (Zoe, the heroine) and a Catholic priest. I was somewhat bored by the parts having to do with the priest and his religious doubts, but I was much more engaged with Zoe's story, wherein Jewsbury questions (as she does in The Half Sisters) women's roles in society. Also, I really liked the friendship between Zoe and Lady Clara, which could so easily have devolved into jealousy and catfighting; instead, Jewsbury gives them a relationship in which each supports the other.

[belva hullp · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3 1/2*)