Caroline Norton

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[ Go to Victorian Women Writers Project at Indiana University for digitised versions of her works - online]

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Bibliographical details
The Wife and Woman’s Reward[...] In Three Volumes. (London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street, 1835), Vol. I 308pp.; Vol. II: 311pp.; Vol. III: 297pp., 12° [[boards 31s 6d; first noticed April 1835; held in 18 libraries incl. BL. [...] Originally advertised in Morning Chronicle (6 March 1835), as ‘Nearly ready […] the Hon. Mrs. Norton’s Novel’. Further edns: (New York 1835); German trans. (1835). [See English Novels 1830-36: A Bibliography of British Fiction (Cardiff) - online.]

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Criticism
Alan Chedzoy, Scandalous Woman: The Story of Caroline Norton (Allison & Busby 1992; Virgin 1992), 312pp.

See also ‘A Celebration of Women Writers: Caroline Norton’, at Univ. of Pennsylvania Digital Library, containing chaps.: Bibliography; The Three Graces [Sheridan sisters]; An Unfortunate Marriage; The School For Scandal; The Infant Custody Bill; In Honour, But Not in Law; The Married Woman’s Property and Divorce Act; Lost and Saved. (Copy in Victorian Women Writers Project, Indiana Univ. [online; extant at 18.11.2010])

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Commentary
Elaine Showalter, A Literature of their Own (1984), p.140, incl. quotation from Lost and Saved (1863): ‘Ever since Jane Eyre loved Mr. Rochester, a race of novel-heroes have sprung up ... Brutal and selfish in their ways, and rather repulsive in person, they are, nevertheless, represented as perfectly adorable, and carrying all before them, like George Sand’s galley-slave.’ Showalter bibl. includes ‘Adam Bede’, Edinburgh Review, CX (1859), 293-339. See also Gail Cunningham, The New Woman and the Victorian Novel (1978) .

[Q. auth.,] review of Alan Chedzoy, Scandalous Woman: The Story of Caroline Norton (Virgin 1992), 312pp; in Sunday Telegraph ( 26 July 1992), notes that recent interest ... is fuelled not by her influence on famous men, but by her role in single-handedly initiating changes in two laws that denied rights to women. She set afoot the Infant Custody Bill of 1839 which allowed women separated from their husbands rights of access to their children, and a Divorce Bill of 1857 which allowed a woman separated from her husband control over her own earnings and legal status. Caroline Norton is however unlikely to be a heroine for feminists. She was “essentially conventional though not respectable” and openly professed her belief that “the natural position of woman is inferiority to man ... I never pretended to the wild and ridicular doctrine of equality.” High-minded contemporaries complained that she was only interested in changing the laws that inconvenienced her, indeed she actually set back the cause of women in general, for her Divorce Bill ... in practice ousted the far more wide-ranging Women’s Property Bill which would have protected all women [not only divorcees]. The reviewer accuses Chedzoy of spoiling the book by occasionally sinking into Mills & Boon-ish slush of empathy. One of the three Sheridan sisters known collectively as the Three Graces ... she had to settle for marriage to George Norton, younger brother to Lord Grantley. He showed his resentment of his wife’s cleverness with his fists but relied on her to contacts to find him a sinecure. the old rake Lord Melbourne was charmed by a woman who could kick his hat over his head at an official function. Norton accused Melbourne of criminal conversation when she left him. Melbourne was acquitted after a farcical trial but Caroline’s reputation never recovered. She was condemned to be the only female at all-male dinner parties (a position she thoroughly enjoyed). She betrayed the confidences of Lord Melbourne and her later lover Sidney Herbert, out of sheer foolishness and vanity - if she did not sell information to the papers as was claimed. But she was a lively companion, and the best bits of the biography are where she is allowed to speak for herself.

Jonathan Keates, review of Alan Chedzoy, Scandalous Woman, The Story of Caroline Norton (Allison & Busby 1992), Times Literary Supplement 20 Nov. 1992, p.32; with detail from William Etty’s portrait (TLS 4677); Harriet Martineau and other appropriately scornful of Mrs Norton’s blatantly selfish motivation in her campaign for reform; pointedly did not ask her to sign rival petition from Women’s Committe, which had George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, and Jane Welsh Carlyle among its signatories. ... After her death, Disraeli turned her into Berengaria Montford in Endymion and Meredith was hauled over the coals by Lord Dufferin for traducing her memory in Diana of the Crossways. Dickens, reporting the Melbourne trial for the Morning Chronicle, drafted it into service for the Bardell episode of The Pickwick Papers. Gales of laughter greeted the solemn reading, by Norton’s counsel Sir William Follett, of innocuous extracts from Caroline’s letters ... though the verdict officially cleared her name, Caroline never wholly regained respectability.

Vincent Cheng (James Joyce and Empire, Cambridge UP 1995), quotes Harry Stone on Caroline Norton, author of “The Arab’s Farewell to his Steed” [the poem that the narrator cites in Joyce’s story “Araby”, though not the song that inspires the title]: ‘That an Irish woman as beautiful as Caroline Norton should have been sold by her husband for English preferments; that she should have been sold to the man who, in effect, was the English ruler of Ireland; that she, in turn, should have been party to such a sale; that this very woman, writing desperately for money, should compose a sentimental poem celebrating the traitorous sale of a beautiful and supposedly loved creature- and that this poem should later be cherished by the Irish (the uncle’s recitation is in character, the poem was a popular recitation piece, it appears in almost every anthology of Irish poetry) - all this is patently and ironically appropriate to what Joyce is saying.&’146; (Stone, ‘“Araby” and the Writings of James Joyce’, in Robert Scholes & A. Walton Litz, eds., Dubliners: Text, Criticism and Notes, [1976] pp.344-67, p.358; here p.100. Note that Cheng narrates how Caroline Norton was ‘sold’ to Lord Melbourne in circumstances that came out when her husband sued for divorce, and concludes that she, like her ‘steed’ and Mangan’s sister in Joyce’s story “Araby” are types of Dark Rosaleen, i.e., Ireland. Cheng concludes: ‘In Joyce’s vision of a debased and colonised Ireland, Dark Rosaleen is not a Gaelic Madonna but a cheap flirt selling her wares and her self for the coins of strangers.’ (p.100; chap. end.)

Mary Mark Ockerbloom, ‘A Celebration of Women Writers: Caroline Norton’, at Univ. of Pennsylvania Digital Library: ‘[...] Norton did not argue that women were the equals of men, like Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of her friend Mary Shelley. Rather, she argued that they must be treated equally under the law: the principles of justice must apply to rich and poor, male and female, master and apprentice alike. Both were radical claims in 1855. Norton saw the law as having a special responsibility to ensure that persons in dependent positions are protected from abuses of power. She refused to accept that the law could act on behalf of abused apprentices in factories or subordinates at sea, and not act on behalf of women in their homes, who suffered the abuse of their husbands. [..., &c.’; link.]

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Quotations

A Voice From the Factories (1836) [Printers Preface]: The abuses even, of such a business, must be cautiously dealt with; lest, in eradicating them, we shake or disorder the whole fabric. We admit, however, that the case of CHILDREN employed in the Cotton Factories is one of those that call fairly for legislative regulation. McCulloch. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street . MDCCCXXXVI. [Dedication:] MY LORD, An anonymous Author, whose own name could give no importance to this ephemeral production, ventures to claim the aid of yours; as one not only noble, but intimately connected with the subject of his verse. / To the just-minded, the opinions of no individual, however obscure, should be utterly indifferent; since each man undoubtedly represents the opinions of a certain number of his fellow-men. It is the conviction of this, and the belief, that to abstain from giving our views on any point because we fear [v] due attention will not be paid us, savours rather of vanity than humility, which have induced me to intrude at this time on your Lordship and the Public. / For the mode in which I have done so, some apology is perhaps necessary; since the application of serious poetry to the passing events of the day has fallen into disuse, and is, if not absolutely contemned, at least much discouraged. / Doubtless there are those to whose tastes and understandings, dry and forcible arguments are more welcome than reasonings dressed in the garb of poetry. Yet as poetry is the language of feeling, it should be the language of the multitude; since all men can feel, while comparatively few can reason acutely, and still fewer reduce their reasoning theories to practicable schemes of improvement. / My Lord, I confess myself anxious to be heard, even though unable to convince. It is the misfortune of the time, that subjects of great and pressing [vi] interest are so numerous, that many questions which affect the lives and happiness of hundreds, become, as it were, comparatively unimportant; and are thrust aside by others of greater actual moment. Such, as it appears to me, is the present condition of the Factory Question: and although I am conscious that it requires but an inferior understanding to perceive an existing evil, while the combined efforts of many superior minds are necessary to its remedy; yet I cannot but think it is incumbent on all who feel, as I do, that there is an evil which it behoves Christian lawgivers to remove,—to endeavour to obtain such a portion of public attention as may be granted to the expression of their conviction. / My Lord, my ambition extends so far, and no farther. I publish this little Poem with the avowed hope of obtaining that attention; I publish it anonymously, because I have no right to expect that my personal opinion would carry more weight with it than that of any other individual. The inspiriting [vii] cheer of triumph, and the startling yell of disapprobation, are alike composed of a number of voices, each in itself insignificant, but in their union most powerful. I desire, therefore, only to join my voice to that of wiser and better men, in behalf of those who suffer; and if the matter or the manner of my work be imperfect, allowance will, I trust, be made for its imperfection, since it pretends to so little. / I will only add, that I have in no instance overcharged or exaggerated, by poetical fictions, the picture drawn by the Commissioners appointed to inquire into this subject. I have strictly adhered to the printed Reports; to that which I believe to be the melancholy truth; and that which I have, in some instances, myself had an opportunity of witnessing. / I earnestly hope I shall live to see this evil abolished. There will be delay—there will be opposition: such has ever been the case with all questions involving interests, and more especially [x] where the preponderating interest has been on the side of the existing abuse. Yet, as the noble-hearted and compassionate Howard became immortally connected with the removal of the abuses which for centuries disgraced our prison discipline; as the perseverance of Wilberforce created the dawn of the long-delayed emancipation of the negroes; —so, my Lord, I trust to see your name enrolled with the names of these great and good men, as the Liberator and Defender of those helpless beings, on whom are inflicted many of the evils both of slavery and imprisonment, without the odium of either. / I remain, my LORD, Your Lordship’s Obedient Servant, THE AUTHOR. London ,October, 1836. [See “A Voice From The Factories” - the poem, seq.]

“A Voice From The Factories” - I: ‘When fallen man from Paradise was driven, / Forth to a world of labour, death, and care; / Still, of his native Eden, bounteous Heaven / Resolved one brief memorial to spare, / And gave his offspring an imperfect share / Of that lost happiness, amid decay; / Making their first approach to life seem fair, / And giving, for the Eden past away, / CHILDHOOD, the weary life’s long happy holyday. [...] V: Now watch! a joyless and distorted smile / Its innocent lips assume; (the dancer’s leer!) / Conquering its terror for a little while: / Then lets the TRUTH OF INFANCY appear, / And with a stare of numbed and childish fear / Looks sadly towards the audience come to gaze / On the unwonted skill which costs so dear, / While still the applauding crowd, with pleased amaze, / Ring through its dizzy ears unwelcome shouts of praise. VI: What is it makes us feel relieved to see / That hapless little dancer reach the ground; / With its whole spirit’s elasticity / Thrown into one glad, safe, triumphant bound? / Why are we sad, when, as it gazes round / At that wide sea of paint, and gauze, and plumes, / (Once more awake to sense, and sight, and sound,) / The nature of its age it re-assumes, / And one spontaneous smile at length its face illumes? IX: Ever a toiling child doth make us sad: ‘T is an unnatural and mournful sight, / Because we feel their smiles should be so glad, / Because we know their eyes should be so bright. / What is it, then, when, tasked beyond their might, / They labour all day long for others’ gain,— / Nay, trespass on the still and pleasant night, / While uncompleted hours of toil remain? / Poor little FACTORY SLAVES—for You these lines complain! XVI: / Yet in the British Senate men rise up, / (The freeborn and the fathers of our land!) / And while these drink the dregs of Sorrow’s cup, / Deny the sufferings of the pining band. / With nice-drawn calculations at command, / They prove—rebut—explain—and reason long; / Proud of each shallow argument they stand, / And prostitute their utmost powers of tongue / Feebly to justify this great and glaring wrong. [...; &c.; for full text see attached.]

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The Lady of La Garaye (1866 Edn.): ‘Ruins! How we loved them then! / How we loved the haunted glen / Which grey towers overlook, / Mirrored in the glassy brook. / How we dreamed, - and how we guessed, / Looking up, with earnest glances, / Where the black crow built its nest, / And we built our wild romances; / Tracing in the crumbled dwelling / Bygone tales of no one’s telling!’ (See digital text at Univ. of Pennsylvania, “Celebration of Women” [link].)

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References
Arthur Quiller Couch, ed., Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1918 (new ed. 1929), item 694. BIBL, rep., Norton, A Voice from the Factories, 1836 [Revolution and Romanticism 1789-1834] (Spelsbury: Woodstock Bks. 1994), 40pp.

D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912), lists The Sorrows of Rosalie, poems (anon. 1829); Poems (Boston 1833); The Martyr, trag. (1849); A Voice from Factories, verse (Lon 1836); Home Thoughts and Home Scenes (anon. 1865); first husband died in 1869 and she remarried to Stirling-Maxwell.

Charles Read, ed., A Cabinet of Irish Literature (3 vols., 1876-78), lists Sorrows of Rosalie (1829); Undying One, poem (1830); The Child of the Islands; Stuart of Dunleath; Lost and Saved; Old Sir Douglas; Martyr. La Guraye is a poem, not a novel as DIW says. DIL has a fuller biographical source than the others. Justin McCarthy, Irish Lit., gives ‘Arab’s Farewell’, ‘I do not love thee’, and three others.

John Sutherland, The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (Longmans 1988; rep. 1989), lists The Sorrows of Rosalie (1829); author publicised as female Byron; the episode of her husband’s divorce suit against Lord Melbourne may have inspired Dickens’s Bardell v. Pickwick; social problems poetry followed (A Voice from the Factories, and The Child of the Islands); struggle for custody of children; Stuart of Dunleath, subtitle, ‘A Story of Modern Times,’ autobiographical, and reviewed by Athenaeum in these terms, ‘a tale of trial accumulated upon one poor woman’s head more melancholy than this novel is not within our recollection’; her husband even sought her copyrights as his property. [BL 4]. Note separate entry under Diana of the Crossways, Meredith (1885), Diana Antonia Merion, vivacious Irish orphan, m. Augustus Warwick, retired barrister, separates on groundless suspicion of affair with political grandee; unsuccessful legal action against her; she later engages with a rising young politician, Sir Percy Dacier, and finally united with her admirer Thomas Redworth who has bailed her out in trouble; remarks, ‘the novel is notable for its spirited depiction of female sexual adventurism [...] based, as many contemporary readers immediately appreciated, on Caroline Norton [...] enjoyed considerable success.’

Dictionary of National Biography: her pamphlets on custody of children and female earnings contributed to the amelioration of women’s conditions.

Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America 1904), biog. details as above; cites Sorrows of Rosalie, praised enthusiastically by Christopher North in Noctes Ambrosianae, and by James Hogg; The Undying One (1830), concerns the Wandering Jew; A Voice from the Factories; letters to the Times on factory slavery issued in 1841; long poem Lady of La Garaya [sic]; novels, Stuart of Dunleath; Lost and Saved; and Old Sir Douglas; also a trag., The Martyr, tales, and a book on Sierra Leone.

Victorian Women Writers Project (Indiana U.) holds digital copies of The Child of the Islands (1846); The Dream and Other Poems (1840); English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century (1854); The Lady of La Garaye (1866); A Letter to the Queen on Lord Chancellor Cranworth’s Marriage and Divorce Bill (1855); Letters to the Mob (1848); A Plain Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Infant Custody Bill (1839); The Undying One and Other Poems (1830); A Voice from the Factories (1836). [link]

Belfast Central Public Library holds M. S. Norton, Lady of La Guraye (1871), and Tales and Sketches (1850).

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Notes
Diana of the Crossways: Caroline Norton is the model for Meredith’s Diana of the Crossways [summarised OCEL, p. 271]. See Geoffrey Taylor, Irish Poets of the 19th c.(1951). Peter Kavanagh, The Irish Theatre (1946) cites the Hon. Carloline Norton, 1807-1862; The Martyr (1849), unacted.

W. B. Yeats: When Yeats first described Maud Gonne to John O’Leary, he called her ‘very Irish, a kind of “Diana of the Crossways”’, in reference to Meredith’s novel purportedly based on Caroline Norton; see Collected Letters, Vol. 1, 1986, p.127; cited in Terence Brown, W. B. Yeats: A Critical Life, 1999, p.48; also in , cited in Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks, 1948, p.104.)

James Joyce: Caroline Norton’s Her “Arab’s Farewell to His Steed” is cited in Joyce’s Dubliners, though in not particularly Irish in spirit and unattributed in that context.

Portait (Maclise): ‘In “ Erin”, an oil by Maclise, the Irish writer Caroline Norton poses cloaked and wreathed, one hand resting on the strings of the ineluctable harp. There is a static, poorly lit feel to the canvas, not least to Norton’s rather zombie-like expression, which betrays dhe stageiness of this kind of emblernatising. Norton was in fact a lot livelier than this stilted image would. suggest, as a scandalously separated woman determined to five by her pen. A far more potent icon of an Ireland looiding to its her deliverer. As an inept sun smudges the horizon, the woman’s languid, seaweed-like tresses merge into the vegetation of a rock on one side of her, while forming a coy cache-sexe on the other.’ (See Terry Eagleton, review of “Conquering England: Ireland in Victorian London” [exhibition], in Times Literary Supplement, 1 April 2005, q.p.)

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