The most controversial episode in the life of the seventeenth-century virtuoso and diarist John Evelyn has always been his passionate, complex friendship with the Restoration maid of honour Margaret Blagge, afterwards Mrs Godolphin. His 'Life of Mrs Godolphin', written after her early death in childbirth, exalted the friendship and represented her as effectively a saint. They saw their intense friendship as platonic spiritual mentoring. Yet it is sometimes argued that what took place between them was actually a kind of seduction on Evelyn's part; that far from trying to overcome her religious scruples about marriage to a young man she deeply loved, as he afterwards claimed, he secretly encouraged them in order to keep her in his power, and even falsified some documents to conceal this from her husband, whose patronage he sought. Was Evelyn in his way as much a sexual predator as the Restoration rakes he professed to despise, or does the episode provide a window on an unexplored aspect of early modern spirituality? Undoubtedly there was more to the friendship than Evelyn publicly admitted, but it remains a puzzle still to be interpreted. This new study is based on Evelyn's papers, now fully accessible for the first time, and on important and hitherto unknown correspondence between Margaret Blagge and her future husband. It situates the episode fully within the pre- and post-Reformation debates concerning marriage and friendship (the latter seen by some as 'more a sacrament' than marriage) and the long traditions of platonic love and intense friendships between men and women in religious contexts. Its diverse and vividly realized settings include the glamorous, disreputable public household of the Restoration court and the great gardens of the day, at once 'little worlds' in microcosm and recreations of paradise on earth.
Reviews
... cannot recommend it highly enough ... [Francis Harris] explains with elegance and sensitivity the nature of friendship in early-modern England as well as the workings of John Evelyn's mind. She succeeds in combining the best of scholarship with a style of writing that borrows from the current renaissance of the biographical genre: readable as well as instructive ... Her reading list is inexhaustible and impressive. * Petits Propos Culinaires *
... magnificently researched and moving. * Miranda Seymour, Books of the Year, Sunday Times Culture *
... this beautifully written and intelligent book ... I enjoyed this book immensely. And what is more, I will probably re-read it. * New Directions *
This studied and beautifully researched book aims at setting the record straight and at placing this famous platonic affair in its true historical and religious contexts. * Contemporary Review *
Scholarly, subtle and absorbing ... Transformations of Love throws a searchlight on late seventeenth century ideas, religion, gardens, court culture, sexual morality, femininity and masculinity. Above all, it offers a triumphantly subtle analysis of heterosexual relationships, which vividly recreates a structure of feeling very different from our own. * Amanda Vickery, Times Literary Supplement *
Frances Harris combines impressive erudition with rare insight into human complexity, and she writes with simplicity and elegance. * Anne Chisholm, Sunday Telegraph *
A beautifully considered account ... told with perfect sympathy and backed by a profound knowledge of the period. * Claire Tomalin, Guardian Review, Book of the Week *
Breathtaking ... a fantastically good read. Harris wears her considerable scholarship lightly. She writes like an angel. This is a page-turner, to be read at one sitting. * Lisa Jardine, The Sunday Times *
Tells a story of remarkable depth and complexity ... the definitive account ... rich layers of documentary evidence laid out with care and passion. * Colin Burrow, London Review of Books *
In her subtle analysis, [Harris] places Evelyn and Blagges relationship in the context of the post-Reformation ideal of seraphic love and in the tradition of intense friendships between men and women in religious settings. She throws light not only on the inner lives of her subjects but also on the religion, court culture, philosophy, concepts of femininity, sexual mores, and--not least--horticulture of seventeenth-century England. With a delicate but sure hand Harris has accomplished the highest and most difficult task of the historian: she has allowed us to understand the past on its own terms. Her piercing, quietly stylish work is without question one of the best histories of the year. * Ben Schwarz, The Atlantic Monthly *
Her book leaves us with a vivid picture of 'a woman of true Wit' - and of the men whose lives she transformed. * Kate Chisholm, Telegraph *


Awards
Winner of Winner of the Samuel Pepys Award 2005 Joint Second - Wolfson History Prize Winner 2003.



Book Information
ISBN 9780199252572
Author Frances Harris
Format Hardback
Page Count 338
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 163mm * 25mm