Rating: 5 out of 5

This is a non fiction account of one of the first divorces to be heard in the courts, at a time when a husband could petition his wife purely on the grounds of adultery whilst a wife could only petition her husband on grounds of adultery along with cruelty, desertion, bigamy, incest, rape, sodomy or bestiality. Whilst reading this I often found myself forgetting it wasn’t a novel. The telling of the background and then the trial is done well and vividly so that it is easy, as a woman, to feel outrage at the double standards and unfairness that existed at the time (Judges having mistresses and illegitimate children whilst condemning petitioned wives on suggestion of adultery etc). A fascinating, well-written account on a subject I knew little about.

Originally posted to my Goodreads account