A young Victorian doctor seeks a miraculous cure for the “pederast’s wife.” This is a fascinating novel about the world of late Victorian England, the “new” medicine, sex and scandals, and a revealing portrait of the suffering woman who was in the shadows during the famous Oscar Wilde trial- his wife, Constance Wilde. Clare Elfman paints a vivid picture of this Victorian world: genteel rooms where gentlewomen buttoned to the throat and trapped in log-o-mutton sleeves take tea among the lady fern and aspidistra, while in hidden rooms a fin-de-siecle decadence culminates in the shocking trial of Oscar Wild for “gross indecency.”
“With skill and finesse, Elfman speculates on the strange marriage of Oscar and Constance Wilde… Elfman uses fine period detail to create a Victorian setting in which her character’s wickedly clever
—Publishers Weekly
dialogue runs true.”
2000, 200 pages
ISBN 978-0-8023-1332-4 Paperback $14.95