ARA Review by Clare Blando of Jane Digby's Diary

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Clare Blando
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ARA Review by Clare Blando of Jane Digby's Diary

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[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, Jane Digby's Diary.]
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5 out of 5 stars
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I enjoyed this book immensely and gave Jane Digby’s Diary five out of five stars for a number of reasons. Most enjoyable was the format of the main character’s diary as the platform for her to tell her story and to provide snapshots of world events as they happened. This might lead the reader to delve further into those historical events. The diary format also made this book a quick and uncomplicated read through the eyes of a historic, bright, and engaging personality.

Jane Digby is seventeen years old. She begins her story by sharing a passage from the diary she received as a birthday gift. The reader learns immediately that Jane is young and willful. She lives in England and discovers her life, although highly privileged, comes with excessively high standards of conduct and responsibility. Jane works to live under the pressures of 19th-century English high society but finds it quite impossible. When Jane attends a social event at an exclusive club for wealthy patrons, she meets Edward, who is seventeen years her senior and a member of Parliament. They marry and eventually have a son, Charlie, whom Jane adores but who is frail and sickly. When Jane discovers that Edward has been unfaithful, she and Edward attempt to revive their marriage. But Jane meets another man, Prince Felix, with whom she falls in love and eventually becomes pregnant. Although Jane has the resources of her wealthy family to protect her from the scandals that are brewing because of the affair, gossip from London’s high society rages until Jane is compelled to flee the city while Felix tries to convince his family to accept her.

As a self-described Anglophile, I am pleased to have discovered a historical figure who was previously unknown to me. With every turn of the page, the diary exposes the most intimate and scandalous details of Jane’s life, yet Jane’s words remain deliciously subtle and understated, in the way Englishmen are so capable. As Jane ages, her entries reflect the personality changes she undergoes as a result of her choices and circumstances. Regardless, Hurst seamlessly carries the reader through the diary from entry to entry until the short novel is over. Because I personally enjoy longer books, I will move on to the next volume in the series to learn more about this intriguing character from history.

The nineteenth-century English aristocracy, understandably, draws wide interest because it remained untouchable and unreachable for those who weren’t lucky enough to have been born into it. Nevertheless, the main character, by her shocking behavior, possesses very American sensibilities as she pursues her chosen lifestyle and by rejecting her stuffy British upbringing, regardless of the response from British high society. Jane was also born into a man’s world. She was expected to marry well, produce heirs, and simply accept whatever her husband decides. Being headstrong and highly educated, Jane tenaciously follows her interests in art, literature, horseback riding (straddle), and gardening while also having children as was expected despite not possessing “motherly instincts”.

When finished with the book, I was confident the author was British. However, I was surprised to learn she is American. I imagine this is likely the reason Hurst chose Jane Digby as the subject of her debut novel. Jane’s feminist persona fits well in American culture. I was also drawn to the character who usually obeyed her stern mother or dominant husband, but also unapologetically followed her instincts whether good, bad, or ill-advised.

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