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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Uncommon Arrangements

Most people know about the strange personal relationships which existed amongst the Bloomsbury Group, of whom it was said that they were a "a circle of friends who lived in squares and loved in triangles." But many other people in the artistic and literary circles of the period 1910-1930 were making what might politely be called 'experiments in living', or less politely, 'having your cake and halfpenny as well'. Katy Roiphe takes six examples of marriages and partnerships which were tested almost to the limit. These people were consciously overthrowing the restraints they felt Victorian and Edwardian mores were placing upon personal liberty - particularly the right to have sex with whoever one chose... Read more >>

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