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| Also published as The Beautiful Widow, Mary Shelley' s penultimate novel explores the web of relationships between three women, bound together by the exacting Lord Lodore: his estranged wife Cornelia, a woman ruled by her mother and the norms of aristocratic society; his daughter Ethel, raised in the wilderness of Illinois and utterly dependent on her father; and finally, the independent and highly educated Fanny Derham, the daughter of Lodore' s childhood friend. At first glance, Lodore appears to be a 'silver fork' novel – a popular romance genre from the Regency era about life in fashionable society – yet Shelley' s take imbues the story with subversive critiques of domesticity and masculinity. Long considered the most Jane Austen–like of Mary Shelley' s novels, Lodore is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand this brilliant feminist writer. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||