Mary Diana Dods, a Gentleman and a Scholar: A Gentleman and a Scholar

by Betty T. Bennett

Book Overview

"By an investigative and analytical feat of true Sherlockian proportions, Bennett cracks an elaborate conspiracy that had successfully veiled a Pandora's box of sexual scandal and literary intrigue until Bennett herself revealed it to the world."--Los Ang

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688087175
• ISBN13: 9780688087173
• Release Date: February 1991
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 303 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Interesting literary and historical mystery...

This is the story of a literary mystery that a professor stumbled across, when editing a collection of the letters of Mary Shelley (author of FRANKENSTEIN, widow of the poet, and daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin). Who were David Lyndsay and Walter Sholto Douglas? Who was Isabella Robinson Douglas? Why the mysterious references to Lord M? The author spent time researching the private family papers of the family of a notable Scottish family, the birth and marriage records of Isabella Robinson Douglas's daughter, the wife of a very prominent Victorian man. And she found - not only a mystery that crosses gender and class lines, but also a mystery that points out how much the information we take for granted from such worthy primary sources as birth and marriage certificates, or entries in the august Dictionary of National Biography, can be false or falsified deliberately. At one level, this book should appeal to academic sleuths with a love of history and a particular fondness for the period 1815-1850 (roughly, crossing the late Regency and early Victorian period); at another level, this should appeal to any serious reader of historical fiction who is interested in women's lives, and who wonders how far the truth may or may not deviate from the fictional variants. A suggestion: truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, although it is hard for some (mostly male) critics to swallow. Private scandals and peccadilloes (usually of a sexual nature) have been covered over for decades, even centuries. Today, an academic researching on a different subject or an amateur genealogist trying to find out more about his or her ancestor/ancestress may stumble across the long-hidden truth. This book MARY DIANA DODS is not just about an ambitious woman who is fairly ruthless in attempting to better her social standing (and that of her daughter) but the fate of many illegitimate children in the 19th century as well as young widows and unmarried daughters who were dependent on the males in their family for recognition as well as financial support. And now the spoilers follow -A short summary with spoilers follows (do not read further if you want to solve the mystery along with the author)Mary Shelley meets a couple Mr and Mrs Walter Sholto Douglas abroad, or does she? It turns out that Walter Sholto Douglas is a woman, and one with an astonishing if unacknowledged paternal pedigree. And his "wife" Isabella Robinson is apparently not his lesbian lover, but a young woman of moderately good family who has fallen into disgrace (a pre-marital pregnancy). To avoid shame and to legitimize her child, she and "Walter Sholto Douglas" (whose name gives a clue to her paternal ancestry) pretend to be man and wife; that is, Douglas, or rather Mary Diana Dods, becomes a man, aided by Shelley and her friends. And then, Isabella Robinson is involved with other men (hardly a surprise), and Douglas/Dods disappears. Isabella recreates herself as the mother-in-law of