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Grand
1893
The 1893 bestseller that coined 'the New Woman' and put syphilis, coerced marriage, and the sexual double standard on the page.
The Heavenly Twins
Sarah Grand · 1893
The Heavenly Twins was a sensation in 1893: a novel bold enough to make venereal disease, concealed by a 'respectable' husband from his bride, into a matter of public argument rather than private shame. Sarah Grand builds it as six loosely linked books rather than one continuous plot, circling Evadne Frayling's story through the lens of other characters before returning to her — a structure that lets the novel argue as much as it narrates. Read for the origin of 'the New Woman' as a literary type, and for a rare period document that names, however obliquely, what many Victorian marriage plots left unspoken.
93 chapters · 279,299 words · ~21.2 hr read
Contents
Proem
Grand's prologue introduces the recurring image of a cathedral chime — 'He, watching over Israel, slumbers not, nor sleeps' — that echoes through the novel's six books.
Book I — Childhoods and Girlhoods
Evadne Frayling's unusually bookish upbringing and her disastrous discovery, on her wedding day, of her new husband's past.
- 2Chapter 2~8 min
- 3Chapter 3~8 min
- 4Chapter 4~19 min
- 5Chapter 5~4 min
- 6Chapter 6~4 min
- 7Chapter 7~12 min
- 8Chapter 8~10 min
- 9Chapter 9~13 min
- 10Chapter 10~5 min
- 11Chapter 11~10 min
- 12Chapter 12~12 min
- 13Chapter 13~13 min
- 14Chapter 14~6 min
- 15Chapter 15~24 min
- 16Chapter 16~35 min
- 17Chapter 17~18 min
- 18Chapter 18~7 min
- 19Chapter 19~17 min
- 20Chapter 20~20 min
- 21Chapter 21~37 min
- 22Chapter 22~7 min
- 23Chapter 23~24 min
Book II — A Maltese Miscellany
Evadne's uneasy married life on Malta with Colonel Colquhoun, shadowing the choice she made and its cost.
Book III — Development and Arrest of Development
The twins Angelica and Diavolo's childhood games of disguise and rebellion, a lighter counter-thread to Evadne's story.
Book IV — The Tenor and the Boy
An interlude following Angelica, disguised as her own twin brother, and her strange friendship with a mysterious singer.
Book V — Mrs. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe
Edith Beale's courtship and marriage, running the same trap Evadne faced to its most tragic conclusion.
Book VI — The Impressions of Dr. Galbraith
Evadne's later life and second marriage, seen through the eyes of the physician who comes to know her — and to court her.
- 75Chapter 75~12 min
- 76Chapter 76~4 min
- 77Chapter 77~8 min
- 78Chapter 78~17 min
- 79Chapter 79~10 min
- 80Chapter 80~4 min
- 81Chapter 81~6 min
- 82Chapter 82~14 min
- 83Chapter 83~11 min
- 84Chapter 84~27 min
- 85Chapter 85~18 min
- 86Chapter 86~7 min
- 87Chapter 87~17 min
- 88Chapter 88~9 min
- 89Chapter 89~6 min
- 90Chapter 90~9 min
- 91Chapter 91~16 min
- 92Chapter 92~31 min
- 93Chapter 93~10 min