Stuart of Dunleath: A Story of Modern Times, Volume 1

Caroline Norton is primarily remembered today for her work in repealing the divorce and child custody laws of the Victorian period. The granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the famous Restoration playwright, Norton, herself a prolific and widely read poet and novelist, married George Chapple Norton in 1827. The marriage was a notoriously unhappy one that culminated in separation in 1836, when her husband brought suit of adultery against Lord Melbourne. The suit failed, but, in accordance with the matrimonial laws of the time, her husband retained custody of their children. Norton immediately began a long fight for custody. Because the laws of the time denied married women most rights of property and even juridical status, the popular press was the arena for her struggle; in 1839 she published A Plain Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Infant Custody Bill under the pseudonym Pearce Stevenson. When her youngest son died in 1842, largely due to neglect on the part of her husband, he relented and granted her custody of their two surviving children. Between 1827 and 1842, despite the difficulties of what was rapidly becoming a very public private life and the demands of her writing to reform child custody laws, Norton published a book of verse, The Sorrows of Rosalie (1829), a long poem, The Undying One (1830), her first novel, The Wife and Woman's Reward (1835), and her important factory reform poem, A Voice from the Factories (1836). In 1853, she was sued for debt by her husband, who upon the death of Norton's mother had been cut short of allowance and seized her copyright interests. In response to this lawsuit, Norton once again pamphleteered for her cause, this time in support of the Divorce Bill. Her open Letter to the Queen on this topic was published in 1855. Although she was still active as a writer, she was nearing the end of her literary career. She had published a novel, Stuart of Dunleath, in 1851, but her last long poem, The Lady of La Garaye, appeared in 1862 and her last novel, Old Sir Douglas, in 1867. Norton's poetry and novels today remain relatively unread, although her work for women's rights has been thoroughly documented and remains an important record of English laws for women during the nineteenth century. Throughout her life, Norton was renowned for her wit, grace, and beauty. George Meredith's Diana of the Crossways is putatively based on Norton's affair with Melbourne.