Emma Donoghue’s historical novel based on a real-life lesbian love affair from Victorian England is as forensic as it is intimate. This 300-page historical novel fictionalising the love affair between two teenaged girls from Victorian England—the diarist Anne Lister and her fellow pupil at the residential Manor School of York, Eliza Raine —extends way beyond its frame, with backstories and …
I suppose I do like to lock people up,” admits author Emma Donoghue. Donoghue notes that while people assume any fiction she sets in the present day “must contain autobiographical details, it’s actually just as easy to use your own experience in historical fiction”. And she drew heavily on her own experience of “falling madly in love”, aged 14, with …
Emma Donoghue digs up a formative episode in the life of gay pioneer Anne Lister for her new historical novel, “Learned by Heart.” On the Shelf Learned by Heart By Emma Donoghue Little, Brown: 336 pages, $28 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. But when …
