sarah
Paula Byrne: Perdita
Mary Robinson made some fascinating life choices, which are here outlined in painstakingly accurate detail. Sadly, the reader has to supply all the excitement, sympathy, outrage, and regret, as the author carefully sticks to only the documented facts. I'm confident that this is an excellent work of history, but it is not very readable. I made it as far as Mary's return from France (about 2/3 of the way through the book), but when she started her poetry career I had to put it down. Byrne's dry prose, broken up with excerpts of 18th Century British poetry, was just too tedious. Not recommended.
