Available Formats
One Soul We Divided: A Critical Edition of the Diary of Michael Field
By (Author) Michael Field
Edited by Carolyn Dever
Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press
17th April 2024
United States
General
Non Fiction
LGBTQ+ Studies / topics
Gender studies, gender groups
B
Paperback
360
Width 156mm, Height 235mm
The first book-length selection from the extraordinary unpublished diary of the late-Victorian writer Michael Fieldthe pen name of two female coauthors and romantic partners
Michael Field was known to late-Victorian readers as a superb poet and playwrightuntil Robert Browning let slip Fields secret identity: in fact, Michael Field was a pseudonym for Katharine Bradley (18461914) and Edith Cooper (18621913), who were lovers, a devoted couple, and aunt and niece. For thirty years, they kept a joint diary titled Works and Days that eventually reached almost 10,000 pages. One Soul We Divided is the first critical edition of selections from this remarkable unpublished work.
A fascinating personal and literary experiment, the diary tells the extraordinary story of the love, art, ambitions, and domestic life of a queer couple in fin de sicle London. It also tells vivid firsthand stories of the literary and artistic worlds Bradley and Cooper inhabited and of their encounters with such celebrities as Browning, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Aubrey Beardsley, and Bernard Berenson. Carolyn Dever provides essential context, including explanatory notes, a cast of characters, a family tree, and a timeline.
An unforgettable portrait of two writers and their unexpected romantic, literary, and artistic marriage, One Soul We Divided rewrites what we think we know about Victorian women, intimacy, and sexuality.
Carolyn Dever is professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College. Her books include Chains of Love and Beauty: The Diary of Michael Field (Princeton) and Death and the Mother from Dickens to Freud: Victorian Fiction and the Anxiety of Origins.