Jude Morgan Passion: A Novel of Romantic Poets

Passion: A Novel of Romantic Poets

Jude Morgan

St. Martin's Nov 2005, $24.95

ISBN: 031234368X

The mother of feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft, fails at her attempt to commit suicide, but by 1797 dies eleven days after giving birth to Mary Shelley. Mary and three other Wollstonecraft disciples, Fanny Brawne, Augusta Leigh, and Caroline Lamb, grow up in relative comfort while the Napoleonic Wars occur.

Augusta meets her half-brother, Lord Byron, but soon turns to George Leigh for marital protection. Caroline marries William Lamb, but prefers sleeping with Byron, who has tasted the harem of sultans. When he drops Caroline to sleep with Augusta, his ex lover becomes his stalker. Meanwhile Mary elopes with her father's prot g Shelley, who already has a wife, her stepsister; the trio move together to Switzerland where Byron, physician Dr Polidori, Keats and his squeeze Fanny, join them until tragedy strikes.

PASSION is an intriguing biographical fiction novel that looks deep into the romantic poets of the early nineteenth century, and the prime women who hung with them. The tale grips the audience, especially once the players are in place as when they gather in Switzerland. Interestingly the four females clearly are the better characters as they seem alive and real, while the more famous male counterparts (Mary Shelley aside) seem limpid in comparison; perhaps because one would want Byron or Shelley to be more like their poems. Fans of the Regency era will want to read this strong insightful glimpse at some of the more famous expatriates of the period.

Harriet Klausner