The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski

The Victorian Chaise-Longue first came out in 1953. It is a very short book, almost a novella, about a young married woman who lies down on a chaise-longue and wakes to find herself imprisoned in the body of her alter ego ninety years before. Lisa Appignanesi has described it as 'rare instance of what one could call Gothic realism'.

It also impressed Penelope Lively: ‘This is time travel fiction, but with a difference…  disturbing and compulsive... instead of making it into a form of adventure, what Marghanita Laski has done is to propose that such an experience would be the ultimate terror… so Melanie/Milly clings to the belief that she is dreaming for as long as she possibly can; the point at which she is forced to abandon this comfort and search for other explanations is her plunge into nightmare.... In the stifling, menacing atmosphere in which Melanie finds herself there is another dark, unspoken theme. Sex. Milly has been in some way disgraced… Once again the chaise-longue is the hinge between the two planes of existence. The site of rapture, of ecstasy – that is the implication…’

Meanwhile PD James, author of the Preface, described it as ‘one of the most skilfully told and terrifying short novels of its decade.’

Endpaper

In the front is an early 1950s fabric ('the shiny cream curtains printed with huge pink roses', p.3) reproduced by courtesy of Sanderson & Sons. The back is taken from a panel of mid-nineteenth century Berlin woolwork © Townley Hall Art Gallery and Museum.

Format:Paperback / softback
Publisher:Persephone Books Ltd
Imprint:Persephone Books Ltd
Edition:New ed
ISBN:9780953478040
Published:22 Jun 1999
Classifications:Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
Weight:180g