The Raven at her Writing-Desk: Letters 1849-1889 of Amelia Louisa Vaux Gretton (née Le Mesurier, a.k.a. the Raven)

Abstract

This is a story of love, terrible loss, family and faith. It is also a historical document. It spans the second half of the 19th century. It spans the oceans, by sail and by steam. In Australia Amelia casts a withering eye on early colonial society. In Italy she chronicles the life of an Anglo-Italian banking family against the background of the Risorgimento. And cholera. In Britain she engages with provincial society, the American civil war, the future career of Kaiser Bill, imperial expansion, education for the gentry and for the poor, sponsored emigration, church schisms, literary lions - and lionesses, socialist agitation, Irish terrorism, London fogs.