Nelson & His World

Using the pseudonym Frank Danby, Julia Frankau wrote a book, 'Nelson's Legacy, Lady Hamilton, her story and tragedy'.

Has anybody read it? There is an on-line text but the opening is so fanciful - Emma reputedly the daughter of a gentleman called Cadogan - that I didn't pursue it without seeking further information. I wonder if it is in fact a novel or some sort of imaginative reconstruction rather than a biography. Can anyone comment?

I have a copy this book, but have never been able to face reading it! It appears to be a fictionalised life, full of invented dialogue, but the author's note reads as follows:

Apparently Emma's father was Henry Cadogan, the nephew of George Cadogan of Hawarden. Henry, having got Mary Kidd pregnant, was determined to marry her against his uncle's wishes, who would disinherit him if he did. To escape his uncle, he changed his name to Henry Lyon, became apprentice to the local blacksmith and married Mary. When the blacksmith died, he bought the business, but died himself soon after. As far as the author was concerned, the fact that Emma's father was from a good family made her fall from virtue all the more shameful.

The book is some way off reaching the top of my reading list, so if you would like to read it, Anna, I will happily post it to you.

Well, that's a handsome offer, Tony! Many thanks. I'll add it to the 'to read pile'. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the more books you read, the higher your 'to read' pile grows.

This should be an interesting read - once you get over the odour of sanctimony emanating from the extract you quote, that uses exactly the same tone of moral loftiness as today's tabloids 'setting the record straight in the public interest' when they're paddling in sleaze. Some things never change.

I am really interested in the evolving narrative of Lady Hamilton's life as it is interpreted by biographers from Watkins onwards. The argument that Emma was more blameworthy because she was of a good family is amusing in view of all the biographies I've been reading recently of 18th century aristocratic ladies who lived very rackety lives indeed. But it reflects the times Frankau was writing in. Other biographers of the era, such as Jeaffreson, comment that her immorality was not surprising in view of her low birth; though his attitude is sympathetic rather than censorious.

Interestingly enough, Colin Simpson's 1983 biography of Emma opens with an allusion to Emma's connection to the gentry which I had never seen mentioned anywhere else and I wondered where he had got the information from. There are no notes or bibliography, but it seems that Frankau was a likely source.