Victorian novelist Mary Ward, best known to her contemporaries as Mrs. Humphry Ward, was one of the most successful and complex women of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into the powerful but patriarchal dynasty of Thomas Arnold of Rugby, she lived at the center of an intellectual and cultural circle peopled by such eminent figures as Mark Pattison, Thomas Huxley, and Charles Darwin. Her novel Robert Elsmere (1888), the first in a series of bestsellers, earned her both unprecedented sums of money and the critical respect of such writers as Henry James. She helped found Somerville College, Oxford, the University's first institution of higher education of women, and helped create a number of play centers for the children of London's working poor. And as the first woman reporter to enter the trenches in 1916, she wrote articles that were instrumental in bringing America into the war.
In Mrs. Humphry Ward, John Sutherland explores a goldmine of materials never before available to recapture a fascinating life, one in which extraordinary achievements were often overshadowed by private misfortune. Sutherland describes how Ward's parents' marriage was shattered by her father's religious peregrinations (an Anglican, he converted to Roman Catholicism, then returned to the Church of England, then became a Catholic again), how her own remarkable success placed considerable stress on her marriage, and how all her resources (both financial and emotional) went to support a renegade, spendthrift, and disappointing son. And he also sheds light on one of the great paradoxes of this accomplished woman's life--that she led the fight to block woman's suffrage.
Throughout, Sutherland writes movingly of the private life of a remarkable public figure. A fascinating study of how much a woman could and could not do in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, this engaging biography illuminates the intellectual climate of the late 19th century.
Industry Reviews
`To make a major biography out of a minor subject is a hard thing to do; when it succeeds as triumphantly as this one, it deserves a fanfare.' Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
`John Sutherland's marvellous treatment...has removed the mufflers and brought us a human being, hugely gifted, selfish, ambitious, wrong-headed and lovable. He is always witty, never cruel. He has gone through the family papers with a keen and sympathetic eye; and he thoroughly inhabits the period, its religion, its literature and its social conventions.' Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
`Brilliant...some enthralling chapters...But the canvas never feels overcrowded, and the pace of the story is beautifully maintained.' Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
`lively, intelligent biography... wonderfully absorbing' New Statesman
`a splendid life of Mrs Ward, and a convincing defence against her many detractors' Literary Review
`John Sutherland's carefully researched...account of her life is clearly the best yet.' Julia Briggs, Observer
`a brilliant account of why his subject is no more than a footnote in history, of the decline of an intellectual dynasty, and of the shifting focuses of thought from late Victorian to early 20th Century England' Financial Times
`It's a classic book, beautifully produced, and will give profound satisfaction to anyone who cares to read slightly off the beaten track.' Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
'John Sutherland's admirably researched first full biography of her life will provide a wealth of answers.'
John Moynihan, Catholic Herald
'John Sutherland's carefully researched and generally lively account of her life is clearly the best yet.'
Julia Briggs, The Observer
'John Sutherland's lively, intelligent biography does not flinch from the disagreeable aspects of its subject ...a wonderfully absorbing biography.'
New Statesman & Society
'It is a compelling study. Sutherland is a natural biographer, sensitive to his subject but never fawning, witty, erudite, absolutely at home with the social, political and religious ideas of the period.'
Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times
'Professor Sutherland has written a splendid life of Mrs Ward, and a convincing defence against her many detractors.'
Charles Stephens, Literary Review
'lively, intelligent biography ... a wonderfully absorbing biography'
Zoë Heller, New Statesman
'This is a marvellously informative book, with much to say about the cultural context which produced the fiction of Mrs Humphry Ward. But it is also an unexpectedly poignant account of what is now remembered (if at all ) as a complacent or even repellent life.'
London Review of Books
'To make a major biography out of a minor subject is a hard thing to do; when it succeeds as triumphantly as this one, it deserves a fanfare. John Sutherland's marvellous treatment ... he has removed the mufflers and brought us a human being, hugely gifted, selfish, ambitious, wrong-headed and lovable. He is always witty, never cruel. He has gone through the family papers with a keen and sympathetic eye; and he thoroughly inhabits the period, its religion,
its literature and its social conventions ... brilliant ... some enthralling chapters ... But the canvas never feels overcrowded, and the pace of the story is beautifully maintained ... his comedy never
denies human values and feeling ... It's a classic book, beautifully produced, and will give profound satisfaction to anyone who cares to read slightly off the beaten track.'
Independent on Sunday
`John Sutherland's bold disinterment of this prolific writer and prodigious personality who towered over Victorian England makes enthralling reading .' Independent on Sunday
'an unputdownable biography ... brilliant and sympathetic analysis of the forces that made this Big Ben of Victorian values tick'
Rebecca Fraser, Telegraph
'model biography ... a sad story, brilliantly told'
Joan Smith, The Guardian
'meticulous biography'
Michelene Wandor, Sunday Times
'important book'
Elizabeth Longford, Spectator
'one of the most engaging aspects of this book is its author's unquestionable sense of amusement, indulgently exercised towards his subject and her world ... John Sutherland's splendid re-creation shows that Mrs Humphrey Ward still has much to teach us'
Times Literary Supplement
'From apparently unpromising materials John Sutherland has fashioned an unputdownable biography ... brilliant and sympathetic analysis of the forces that made this Big Ben of Victorian values tick'
Rebecca Fraser, Daily Telegraph
'Sutherland's book, which can claim to be the definitive Life, makes for absorbing reading and is full of rewarding observations.'
Neville Braybrooke, The Tablet
'model biography ... Hers is a sad story, brilliantly told.'
Joan Smith, The Guardian
'Sutherland's book, which can claim to be the definitive Life, makes for absorbing reading and is full of rewarding observations.'
Neville Braybrooke, The Tablet
'John Sutherland writes well ... on the driving, ambitious, overbearing, courageous personality of Mrs Humphrey Ward. John Sutherland has disinterred her and in this biography she lives again.'
Features & Arts, World Service in English Book Talks
'a fascinating insight into late-Victorian preoccupations'
Isabel Colegate, Daily & Sunday Telegraph
'a fascinating study of how much a woman could and could not do in a Victorian-Edwardian era'
Guernsey Evening Press & Star
'Among biographies, Mrs Humphry Ward, by John Sutherland is outstanding. This book rescues her from undeserved oblivion as a character and representative of her age.'
John Grigg, The Times
'brilliantly witty and wide-ranging study'
Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday
'this excellent biography by John Sutherland puts her life and work in a more balanced perspective'
Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, Church Times
'absorbing life of Mrs Humphry Ward'
English Studies, Volume 72, Number 6, December 1991
'John Sutherland tells a wonderful tale - witty, shapely, laconic, plausible, dramatic ... His steady gaze reveals the more because it is so courteous - not indulgent, nor over gallant, but somehow gentlemanly.'
Cicely Palser Havely, The Open University, Notes and Queries, September 1992
