I think this is Summerscale’s best to date. I devoured this one in less than 24 hours. Two normal boys, not yet in their teens, play at truancy and go to Lord’s Cricket Grounds to watch a match. Harmless fun, really. The elder brother has just aged out of the mandatory school age anyway. What’s peculiar…
Kate Summerscale has once again uncovered a fascinating story from the ever contradictory Victorian era. Not so very long ago, divorce was nearly impossible (unless you were King Henry VIII, of course). Until 1858, “marriage could only be dissolved by an individual Act of Parliament, at a cost prohibitive to almost all of the population.…