Secresy: or, The Ruin on the Rock Book

One of the best books I've ever stolen from my coffee shop job. Fair enough; I didn't really steal very many, but this one was just sitting around for months! The author, Eliza Fenwick, was a contemporary of Mary Shelley's; she's almost unknown to those outside the "obscure 18th century women writers" field. And it is an injustice.

Secresy follows the friendship between two women through their correspondence and slowly draws in the correspondence of other characters. Fenwick's restraint and pacing show incredible control over her art. Given that Fenwick was an early feminist and single mother, raising three children and dealing with an alcoholic husband, a fair amount of thought on the roles of women in an industrializing society plays out in the novel, as well.

Caroline and Sibella often discuss the futility of societal concerns and the overarching importance of being honest and true to one's own beliefs and commitments. Of course, the major conflict of the book is a betrayal of these personal commitments--"secresy" refers to Sibella's hidden pregnancy.

It's interesting to compare this work to Austen's; both are from the same time period and both are largely concerned with clever women trying to figure out a way to be happy in a world that only wants stupid women. Where the lovely Jane's women always end up with the man of their dreams and plenty of money, Fenwick goes another path. And her readers are left with a far better understanding of the grave consequences women and men faced in a society that would take nothing but obedience.