Journal of a Neglected Wife, The.
Urner, Mabel Herbert. The Journal of a Neglected Wife. New York: B.W. Dodge & Company, 1909.
8vo.; few pages faintly foxed; oxblood cloth, stamped in gilt; spine slightly cocked.
First edition. This novel tells the story, through fictionalized journal entries, of a woman and a marriage in crisis. The first sentence is a classic: “April 15th: is he with her again to-night?” wonders the novel’s protagonist.
After more than 200 tormented pages (sample tone: “I feel that he is with her—that he has been with her all evening. It always brings that sickening weight in my chest, and a trembling weakness like that of a fright”) the wife finally gathers up the strength to leave her cheating husband, only to return to him even though his behavior is unchanged. In the final chapter the wife and husband are spiritually as well as physically reunited when the mistress dies during childbirth, giving the wife a reason to go on living: “January 16th: I am going to stay. I am going to stay because he needs me...Life can hold nothing now from which I would shrink. I believe that I could walk unflinchingly on red-hot coals, that I can suffer no more” (p. 251).
A fascinating work of rage, irony, paranoia, and self-degradation by a little-known female author.
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