As an English teacher, I'm ashamed to admit that I knew very little about either Elizabeth Barrett or Robert Browning before picking up this book. The story of their maid, Lily Wilson, gives an interesting perspective on the private life of Elizabeth and Robert. And I admired that Forster depicted the two famous literary figures as she saw to be accurate, rather than glamorizing and glorifying them as there might be a temptation to do. The two poets are very human, often fussy, melodramatic, and given to self-aggrandizement. That made me all the more interested in the story of Lily and the difference in their lifestyle and hers, and of course their indifference to the way they treated her. It's been a while since I read something like Jane Austen, so it was refreshing and fascinating to dip back into a world with social codes so different from ours today. This book must have taken years to research, and Forster's depiction of Victorian life shows the evidence of that research.

There was a page-long afterword that explained which parts of the book were true, but I wanted more. I wish Margaret Forster had written more books like this! You won't be sorry you picked it up.

I knew next to nothing about the subject matter of this book when my mother lent it to me (she loved it as well). Forster is able to completely personalize the social constrictions of Victorian society through the eyes of Wilson, Lady's Maid to the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Honestly enjoyable and a treat to read. I couldn't help noticing all the 5 star ratings here - well deserving of this fine author. Bravo!

I have to start out by saying that it has been 9 years since I read this book, but even now it stands out as one of the most telling books I have ever read about a genious writer named Elizabeth Barret Browning. In Lady's maid the story of Elizabeth Barret Browning is told from the eyes of her Maid servant. This unusual perspective gives the reader the ability to see the writer(Elizabeth Barret) from a third party focus instead of a introspective focus. The book is sooo good that you are instantly transfixed after the first page. If you are wise you will buy the book and read it when you can literaly sit down and read it cover to cover and enjoy it. It is that good! Enjoy and be edducated. Remember to have lots of tissue at the end, you will need it!

I really enjoyed this book. It moved me to think about all the people in my life and all the people before me. Margaret Forster writes with so much feeling and depth. She guides you through the people and the events surrounding these characters and it seems you too may have family relatives just like hers somewhere. Margaret Forster is a highly skilled writer. The strength of this memoir I felt was in is the detail and the social commentary. It is also a great tribute to women and their work and their many roles in life.

Hidden Lives is the story of four generations of women in Forster's own family. She uses her brilliance as a novelist to create a fascinating and emotionally compelling history. Without going into dry statistics she gives us a picture of the lives of working class women in Carlisle, England from the late 1800s to her own successful life today. It tells social history through the ordinary details of everyday lives, but on another level, the book is just a great read and highly recommended.

In this excellent memoir, Margaret Forster has succeeded in writing about death and dying without the usual cliches or overwrought sentiments. She tells two stories of people she loves; her fifty-six year old sister-in-law dying of cancer and her ninety-six year-old father dying of old age. Told with honesty and humor, we can admire her father's tenacity and determination to maintain his identity without having to believe that he has suddenly acquired great wisdom. We can also grieve for the younger person as she endures her cancer treatments without being asked to see her as a soldier losing a battle. Ms Forster is equally forthright in describing her own conflicted feelings of loving compassion mixed with the desire to see the end of her loved ones suffering as they struggle through the last days of their precious lives. The reader will find no angels or great epiphanies in this absorbing book but just might find it all the more inspiring for it's unsentimental look at the human spirit.

Charles Edward Stuart is one of the most romanticized figures in Scots history - more kitch history has been made of Bonnie Price Charlie than virtually anyone else in the eighteenth century.

As Forster makes clear from the outset, he was far from romantic in real life: he beat his mistress, he was paranoid, vain, profligate, often drunk (especially in his late years), politically inept and utterly deluded as to his future prosects. In this narrative, we follow Charlie through all the phases of his odd life: upbringing in Rome, life in Paris, arrival in Scotland in 1745, initial triumph at Prestonpans, the march on England, the retreat, defeat at Culloden, life on the run in the Hebrides, escape to the Continent, then gradual decline and relative obscurity back in Italy. Forster's pen is sure; she has had access to the Stuart's family papers, and her grip on the era and general understnading of eighteenth cenruty Europe is superb.

There are some truly odd things about Charles' life: why, for instance, did he so flippantly abandon Catholicism AFTER 1746, when an earlier conversion to Protestantism would have aided his cause in the uprising - whereas a later conversion simply damaged his chances of winning Papal recognition as King of England? Yet there are inspiring things too: his poise and bravery in 1745, his ability to inspire loyalty, his elusion of his Hanoverian pursuers in 1746 (special thanks here to Flora MacDonald), are to his everlasting credit, notwithstanding his later failngs.

Charles' psychological problems seem to stem from one essential truth: his entire life's predicament (as king-in-exile) was bizarre. The central and irrefutable fact of Charles' existence was that he was, by any legal definition, the rightful and direct male heir to the English and Scottish thrones; yet save perhaps for a few fleeting months in 1745, he was never accepted as such. In other words, since the world refused to behave normally, small wonder that Charles himself never could. In this context, perhaps Forster's verdict, while magnificently rendered, is somewhat harsh.

This book keeps the reader enthralled in its content. It tells parallel stories of two abandoned babies,searching for the missing link. A curiosity that only their real mother can provide.Kept in tune with their adventures, you will be surprised at how it comes together in the end.

I was adopted as a child, at the age of six (both parents killed in a car accident when I was four). I found this story of two orphaned children to be well worth reading. I enjoyed it more than another book by the same author, Hidden Lives. What I enjoyed most was looking at how the two mothers felt about their illegitimate children, and how the two daughters felt about having been abandoned. It explores all four of these women's lives and feelings for the entire course of all four women's lives. I was fortunate to remember my real mother, and have people tell me about my real parents. This book made me reflect on the various possiblities of how different parents and children react to adoption, and I thought it was quite realistically done, even though all four women's cases were drastically different from my own. It is a book that really explores lives and feelings.

Shadow Baby is the story of two illegitimate daughters - one in contemporary Scotland, the other a century earlier, in the north of England. It's very compulsive reading, a brilliantly told story that looks at the relationships between mothers and daughters and the social attitudes and economic conditions that can have a profound impact on our personal choices and everyday lives. The characters are beautifully drawn and easy to identify with. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys writers like Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Margaret Drabble.

This is an inspiring novel which proves to be a really compulsive read.
It is beautifully written; strong from start to finish and highly successful in capturing the readers attention and drawing them into the vivid mystery of the 'memory box'.
I was eager to follow Catherine in unravelling the mystery of the abstruse box that was left to her by her mother who died from a heart condition when Catherine was barely six months old.
The book is quite emotional at times and I found it interesting to observe how the 'memory box' slowly changes Catherine's feelings for her deceased mother. As Catherine studies the objects from the box, she learns more and more about the person her mother was and feels a strong connection with the woman she never knew.
I would highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in discovering an extremely gripping and enticing read - guaranteed to leave you satisfied.

Margaret Forster takes us on a wonderful journey through Catherine's discovery of her dead mother. The 'memory box' her mother leaves her daughter as she dies, when the child is only six months old, reminds us of the importance of personal history and the sense that it gives us all of our grounding in life. The journey that Catherine undertakes leads her to question her own lifestyle and the relationships with her father, stepmother and Tony her boyfriend. To the very end she reconciles her feelings for the mother she tried to ignore and discovers unexpected truths about herself. The box for thirty years enclosed and contained within the attic of her family home, once opened like Pandoras Box, couldnt be closed again. An engaging story which will make you question your history.

This book is funny, touching and very realistically written - and well written too! Grandma in Had the Men had Enough reminds me very much of old people with senile dementia I knew in real life - all those extremely comical situations mixed with tragedy and insights into the personality the aged used to be. A must for anybody with old family members (who not?). It makes you look at old age in a new and (emotionally) better informed way, a more pensive way maybe. Given the subject the book is not at all heavy reading, it is rather light and straightforward. The only drawback to me lies in the construction of the novel (one star off for that is a lot, I know). The story is told by a mother (Grandma's daughter-in-law) and her daughter (Grandma's grandchild) alternatively. They give a kind of diary account of everything that happens with Grandma - but almost no word about the rest of their lives. A very lively way to tell a story, but it has also its unnatural aspects one perceives only after a while or after having finished the book. Nevertheless, Had the Men had Enough is very much worth reading.

I thought that Have the Men had enough was a very funny and emotional book. It was well written . Although the book does not have the same action and compelling drama as some, it does keep you laughing and crying the whole way through.

Have the men had enough is one of the best books I have ever read...it made me laugh and cry and I felt it depicted the nightmare of dementia within a family briliantly. Margaret Forster is a very astute woman.