Introduction
Having long since established his reputation as a master reporter of the more intimate side of English life in the early nineteenth century, Andrew Miller won new laurels with this work, the first of two novels concerning Jane Boswell.
The second, and equally bawdy portion, is now being translated from the language of the times and prepared for distribution under its original title, "Jane la America."
Once again, Miller has decided to ignore almost completely the leisure class, the foppish members of Queen Victoria's court, to portray life among the merchant class.
In the case of Jane Boswell, seduced by her father with the aid of the maid at the age of sixteen, her merchandise was her lovely young body, but as portrayed by Miller, in his usual frank, descriptive style, she merchandised it in a manner which could hardly be improved on by the hawkers of Madison Avenue today.
But it is not strange that Miller should choose a prostitute, and a Lesbian one at that, as his central character in this tale.
In Victorian England, with the industrial revolution flourishing, an ambitious and daring young woman would find little comfort in marriage for reasons which we shall discuss.
As an alternative, she could work long hours for low pay in the mills and factories which were springing up all over the country, but this was hardly rewarding since it was at best a rough, unrewarding life.
While the Puritans in their day had done their best to deprive women of any pleasures in the enjoyment of sex, even if married, the Victorian morality refined it to such a point that no decent person of that time was prepared to accept the premise that a woman wanted to experience pleasure in the act of love.
So effectively was this message preached and received, that even the men who indulged in sexual intercourse with their wives or whores, felt that it was a dirty and shameful matter.
Following the ancient rule of action and reaction, a few of the people of that era rebelled. In their rejection of prudish Victorian morality which labelled all sexual activity as dirty and sinful and did not even make an exception for the marital couch, they turned, not surprisingly, to hedonism.
Since Miller always showed a fondness for rebels in his writing, it is not surprising that as he began his coverage of the Victorian era, he chose again those who rebelled rather than those who accepted and followed blindly.
He does so with the same candor and descriptive magic he demonstrated in his very first works and proves again that along with Roger Charlton before him, he ranks as probably the greatest reporter of his life and times in the history, ancient and modern, of England.
Even those who would reject this claim, cannot reject the claim that his descriptions of the erotic side of life are beyond compare.
This book, originally published in either 1836 or 37, provides evidence in this regard which is not to be refuted.