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Kate Summerscale talks to Sarah Crompton

Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady

Hay Festival 2012, Sunday 10 June 2012

A compelling story of romance and fidelity, insanity, fantasy, and the boundaries of privacy in a society clinging to rigid ideas about marriage and female sexuality. The Samuel Johnson Prize-winner (The Suspicions of Mr Whicher) brings vividly to life a complex, frustrated Victorian wife, longing for passion and learning, companionship and love.