The Life and Death of Harriett Frean

Harriett Frean is a child of the high Victorian era. Throughout her life her only aims are to behave beautifully and please her adored parents. But as her long life draws to a close, she dimly perceives the bitter truth.

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Well, I'm glad my little girl didn't snatch and push. It's better to go without than to take from other people. That's ugly.'

Harriett is the Victorian embodiment of all the virtues then viewed as essential to the womanly ideal: a woman reared to love, honour and obey. Idolising her parents, she learns from childhood to equate love with self-sacrifice, so that when she falls in love with the fiance of her closest friend, renunciation of this unworthy passion initially brings her a peculiar sort of happiness. But the passing of time reveals a different truth.

Ironic, brief and intensely realised, The Life and Death of Harriett Frean (1922) is a brilliant study of female virtue seen as vice, and stands with the work of Virgina Woolf and Dorothy Richardson as one of the great innovative novels of the century.

Additional information

Weight 41 g
Dimensions 198 × 126 × 14 mm
Author

Publisher

Virago

Imprint

Virago

Cover

Paperback

Pages

183

Language

English

Edition

New edition

Dewey

823.912 (edition:21)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K