This book is one part Emily Dickinson biography, one part history of the fight for ownership of her poems. Emily feels a little distant. Her deaths comes at the halfway point, and the rest of the book chronicles the multi-generational, decades long feud, which started as an adulterous affair and ended up being about control of Emily’s poems and reputation.

Gordon absolutely demolishes any romantic ideas I had about the intriguing Master Letters. She also makes a very compelling argument that Emily was an epileptic.

This book is strongest in its explanation of the events which crafted Emily's posthumous legacy, and the origins of popular mythos surrounding her persona.

This was my first Elinor Glyn novel and caught my attention particularly because she wrote it while visiting the Russian royal court circa 1910. She makes many interesting observations about the Russian aristocracy through the eyes of her young, widowed protagonist, Tamara. The love interest, Gritzko, makes for an early form morally grey MMC. I was enjoying it up until the end, when Gritzko does something that just killed the romance and my overall enjoyment. Still, interesting as social history if nothing else, and while tame by standards of today, it's not without its daring moments. One scene in particular - Tamara and Gritzko are dancing, he's holding her so closely that the material on his military uniform leaves a mark across her bosom. He says to her, "I would like those brands of me to last forever," to which she knows she ought to feel disgusted but can't quite bring herself to be.