She came across a fascinating figure that drove her to dig deep into history. Kate was inspired to write her first book while writing an obituary. Her counsel told the court the diary was “the product of extravagance, of excitement, and of irritability, bordering on, if not actually in, the domain of madness.Kate Summerscale is an award-winning English author that writes historical novels. Her journal, once a liberating forum for her innermost feelings, was used to imprison her in the cage of sexual insanity.
It was a bizarre - but effective - strategy. Lane, the defense claimed Isabella’s musings were pure fiction. To refute the charge of adultery and save the reputation of Dr. The proceeding itself was an extraordinary showcase for all the hypocrisies of Victorian society. Robinson and Lane (1858) became one of the first trials in a new court that granted the middle classes an easier route to divorce. Henry Robinson became convinced of it after he discovered her diary and sued for divorce (no matter that he had a mistress who bore him two illegitimate children). But did her behavior cross over into adultery? It is quite possible Lane and Isabella consummated their relationship sexually. Isabella noted her “passionate and uncontrollable feelings” for Lane. He was nervous, and confused, and eager as myself.” Oh, God! I had never hoped to see this hour, or to have my part of love returned. A country walk with Edward gives way to tumult and emotional upheaval: “What followed I hardly remember - passionate kisses, whispered words, confessions of the past.
Robinson’s entries were charged, suggestive, swooning. She calls Isabella’s journal “a haven for the parts of her that were not accommodated by married life.” Victorian-era diaries became a kind of temple of the self: an inner sanctum where ideas were tested, emotions weighed. And something happened between the two, but what? Summerscale is canny enough to leave us with a tantalizing sense of ambiguity. Isabella also received treatment for various ailments at Lane’s spa. Some thought it quack science others, like Charles Darwin, toiling away at his theories of evolution and wracked by neuroses, saw its benefits and sought Lane’s help. “Taking the waters,” much like yoga today, appealed to the middle classes in search of a cleansing antidote to the rigors of modern life. Handsome - and married - the younger Lane appealed to Isabella with his attentive charms. It was there that she met a man who would become an obsession: Edward Wickstead Lane. Isabella mixed with the cutting-edge thinkers, doctors, and literary figures of Edinburgh.
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