NORTON: The Collected Writings of Caroline Norton (1808-1877)

Caroline Norton’s life reads like a rather improbable Victorian melodrama. She was the grand-daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and was raised in dignified poverty in a grace and favour property at Hampton Court. At the age of 15 she was taken on a visit to Wonersh Park, the home of Lord Grantley, by her governess. Beautiful and high-spirited, Caroline made a strong impression on George Norton, heir to the estate, and he proposed marriage to her. He had to wait 3 years, until she had "come out", before she accepted. Her situation was similar to that of one of her characters in her novel, Stuart of Dunleath – "She had married a man she did not love; whom she did not profess to love; for certain advantages – to avoid certain pressing miseries."

Fresh miseries piled upon her. Her husband beat her and her fame – as a Sheridan and also as a poet – only served to inflame his temper. The arguments grew worse and worse and ended with a divorce suit – George suing her on the basis of her affections for Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister.

The accusations were ungrounded and the divorce suit failed, but Caroline Norton realised how weak women were in the eyes of the law. At that time woman had no legal status and all of their property belonged to the husband, who also had automatic rights to the custody of the children. In her own case that meant that George stopped her from seeing her children and received royalties from her poetry. As she was to say later, "I have no rights; I have only wrongs."

Caroline Norton spent much of the rest of her life campaigning for changes to the law, which came with the Infant Custody Act (1838) and the Married Woman’s Property Act (1882). As such she was a fierce campaigner for women's rights in a society where gender defined the life you could live.

This project brings together all her literatue including her poetry, novels and pamphlets covering The Sorrows of Rosalie (1829), The Undying One (1830), The Wife and Woman’s Reward (1835), The Coquette (1835), A Voice from the Factories (1836), A Plain Letter to the Lord Chancellor (1839), The Dream (1840), The Child of the Islands (1845), Aunt Carry’s Ballads (1847), Letters to the Mob (1848), Tales & Sketches (1850), Stuart of Dunleath (1851), A Letter to the Queen (1855), The Lady of La Garaye (1862), Lost and Saved (1863), Old Sir Douglas (1868) and The Rose of Jericho (1870). There are also collections of her prose and poetry from the Court Magazine and The English Annual.