Parallel Lives

This is a book which made a big impact when it first appeared, and continues to be a source of inspiration to many biographers. I noticed an appreciative reference to it in Katie Roiphe's recent study of unconventional literary relationships, Uncommon Arrangements. Phyllis Rose has chosen to write about a series of fairly famous Victorian literary marriages in which the personal relationships were unusual by contemporary standards, and which she believes offer modern readers something to think about in our age of apparent sexual free-for-all. [And I couldn't help feeling from hints she drops at regular intervals throughout the book that she was working out some of her own personal issues at the same time.] Read more >>

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