This is the first new edition of Lydia Helen Burton's novel 'Bertha Darley or, Life in Her Husband's Curacies,' since it was first published in 1858. Lydia Burton was born Lydia Rothwell in Manchester in 1823. She married the Reverend Charles Henry Burton in 1841. Lydia and Charles spent the early years of their marriage in Bradford, Leeds and Liverpool.
No doubt based on Lydia's own experiences, 'Bertha Darley' is a fictional account of the life of a young curate's wife in various industrial towns of the north of England in the 1840s. The heroine of the book, Bertha Darley, writes about many different topics that affect her every day life, including the condition of marriage; her friendships; her parish visits; the perils of infidelity; and much more. It includes a description of a Chartist riot, which led one contemporary critic to write that the account reminded him of Charlotte Bronte's 'graphic narrative' of a similar event in her novel 'Shirley.' Other critics of the time described Bertha Darley as 'cleverly and carefully written' and with no 'inconsiderable amount of humour.' Perhaps these are sufficient recommendations to commend this long forgotten Victorian classic to a new readership.