Slammerkin

by

422 pages

English language

Published Feb. 24, 2000 by Virago.

ISBN:
978-1-86049-828-2
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
43634390

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(1 review)

Exciting, riveting, historical period book about a young seamstress who through a series of misfortunes (to put it mildly) falls in with a veteran prostitute struggling to survive in big bad London.

3 editions

reviewed Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue

Excellent read, but too much for me right now

Mary Saunders doesn’t want to eke out a life sewing piecework like her mother. She wants more; a scarlet ribbon, to wear silks every day, her own coach. When circumstance intervenes she has no choice but to grasp fate with both hands and attempt to bend it to her will.

A reread. It surprised me to find how much more I enjoyed this the first time I read it, originally giving it 4 stars back in 2014. While I still admire Donoghue’s writing and storytelling skills, I suppose I’m just less able to handle the particular flavour of sadness running throughout “Slammerkin” now. It remains excellent historical fiction, just a little too grimdark even for my tastes these days.

Subjects

  • Saunders, Mary, d. 1764 -- Fiction.
  • Women -- England -- Fiction.
  • Women murderers -- Fiction.
  • Murder -- Fiction.
  • Great Britain -- History -- George III, 1760-1820 -- Fiction.
  • London (England) -- History -- 18th century -- Fiction.
  • Monmouth (Wales) -- Fiction.