The Sealed Letter

Longlisted for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize
Shortlisted for Lambda Literary Award (Best work of lesbian fiction)

'Pop culture’s fascination with Hollywood divorces — Tom and Nicole, Denise and Charlie, Pamela and the man of the moment — pales when compared with the excitement almost any divorce stirred in Victorian England. So it is in Emma Donoghue’s cozily lurid new novel, The Sealed Letter, which tells a story all the more remarkable for being based on an actual case involving an admiral, his beautiful young wife and a prominent activist for women’s suffrage ... As with Donoghue’s previous novels Slammerkin and Life Mask, the plot is psychologically informed, fast paced and eminently readable.' Susann Cokal The New York Times

'Mid-Victorian London feels so real you can almost taste it… Donoghue is masterful in handling the theme of Fido's possible erotic desire for Helen and Helen's manipulation of same. She depicts female sexual attraction as a complex threat, both enthralling and taboo. In Victorian England, she suggests, female adulterers and lesbians were equally dangerous beings. This convincing, troubled account of marital politics reminds us that George Eliot began writing Middlemarch, a masterpiece of unhappy marriages, a few years after the Codrington case was heard.' Washington Post

‘A wicked tale of Sex and the Victorian City… Donoghue weaves an engrossing and often quite funny melodrama about a bad, bad girl who bursts the seams of this corseted world — it's part Forever Amber and part clockwork courtroom drama, with bawdy undercurrents of forbidden love thrown in for good measure. All in all, a deliciously wicked little romp, complete with a clever twist at the end.’ Seattle Times

Miss Emily ‘Fido’ Faithfull is a woman ahead of her times, running her own printing press in Victorian London. She is distracted from her work by the sudden return of her once-dear friend, the unhappily wed Helen Codrington. Before she knows it, Fido is swept up in the intimate details of Helen’s failing marriage and obsessive affair with a young army officer.

What begins as a loyal effort to help a friend explodes into a courtroom drama muckier than any Hollywood tabloid could invent — complete with stained clothing, accusations of adultery, counterclaims of rape, and a mysterious letter that could destroy more than one life.

Based on a scandalous divorce case that gripped England in 1864, The Sealed Letter is a compelling and provocative drama of friends, lovers, and divorce, Victorian style.

Emma Donoghue is an award-winning Irish writer who lives in Canada. She has published six novels including the bestselling Slammerkin and Life Mask, two books of short stories, two works of literary history, two anthologies and two plays. Her novels have been widely translated.