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The Journal of Dora Damage

A Novel

By Belinda Starling

(4)

| Hardcover | 9781596913363

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Book Description

In the tradition of Sarah Waters, a rich, sweeping historical novel set in Victorian London, about a bookbinder’s wife who, to save her family, must take over her husband’s business.

London, 1860: On the brink of destitution, Dora Damage illicitly takes over her ailing husContinue

In the tradition of Sarah Waters, a rich, sweeping historical novel set in Victorian London, about a bookbinder’s wife who, to save her family, must take over her husband’s business.

London, 1860: On the brink of destitution, Dora Damage illicitly takes over her ailing husband's bookbinding business, only to find herself lured into binding expensive volumes of pornography commissioned by aristocratic roués. Dora's charm and indefatigable spirit carry her through this rude awakening as she contends with violent debt collectors, an epileptic daughter, evil doctors, a rheumatic husband, errant workmen, nosy neighbors, and a constant stream of wealthy dilettantes. When she suddenly finds herself forced to offer an internship to a mysterious, fugitive American slave, Dora realizes she has been pulled into in an illegal trade of sex, money, and deceit.

The Journal of Dora Damage whips up a vision of London when it was the largest city in the world, grappling with the filth produced by a swollen population. Against a backdrop of power and politics, work and idleness, conservatism and abolitionism, Belinda Starling explores the restrictions of gender, class and race, the ties of family and love, and the price of freedom in this wholly engrossing debut novel.

Critics

  • Sex on the page and off it

    The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling 452pp, Bloomsbury, £12.99 The great swell of novel writing which peaked in the late 1850s and 60s has yielded rich pickings for literary pastiche, not least because what the Victorians merely hinted at, ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • Journal of Dora Damage

    Putrid, smelly, overcrowded Victorian Lambeth; the Necropolitan railway rumbling away in the background; prestigious bookbinding business under threat from tyrannical husband's arthritic fingers; angelic girl child's epilepsy getting worse; debt-coll ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

1 Review

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  • I loved this book, i wasnt planning on reading it but was so glad i did. It's very raunchy!

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    Vicky said on Feb 7, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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9781596913363 Hardcover $24.95 -- The Book Depository
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