{"product_id":"2026200007619-secondhand-parallel-lives-five-victorian-marriages","title":"Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good                          \u003cbr\u003eJacket: Very good\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good         ,          price clipped\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: No markings\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA landmark work of feminist literary biography, Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose examines the intimate partnerships of five iconic Victorian couples — John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, Thomas and Jane Carlyle, John Ruskin and Effie Gray, Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth, and George Eliot and George Henry Lewes — as windows into the broader politics of power within marriage. Rose argues with sharp, elegant intelligence that marriage is not merely a personal arrangement but a political one, shaped by the stories each partner tells themselves and each other to justify the balance of power they inhabit. Drawing on letters, diaries, and biographical records, she uncovers the hidden negotiations, sacrifices, and self-deceptions that sustained — or ultimately destroyed — these celebrated unions. Written with the wit and analytical precision of the finest cultural criticism, the narrative illuminates how Victorian ideals of domesticity and gender shaped real lives in ways both subtle and devastating. The result is a deeply humane and intellectually rigorous portrait of marriage as a social institution, one that resonates far beyond the nineteenth century.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48887903682779,"sku":"2026200007619-SECONDHAND","price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/81aa5ad0-3247-4856-8002-b95d9d8f46af.png?v=1781748512","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200007619-secondhand-parallel-lives-five-victorian-marriages","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}