The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

Poet, pamphleteer and beauty, Caroline Norton dazzled 19th-century society with her vivacity and intelligence. After her marriage in 1828 to the MP George Norton, she continued to attract friends and admirers to her salon in Westminster, including the widowed Prime Minister Lord Melbourne. Racked with jealousy, George Norton took the PM to court, suing him for damages on account of his ‘Criminal Conversation’ (adultery) with Caroline. Despite an acquittal, Norton legally denied Caroline access to her 3 children under 7. He also claimed her income as an author for himself, since the copyrights of a married woman belonged to her husband. Caroline channelled her energies into reform: the rights of a married woman and specifically those of a mother. Antonia Fraser portrays a woman who refused to be curbed by the personal and political constraints of her time.