Diana Basham

It is difficult to summarize this sprawling, abstruse book, but one might begin by citing the author's definition of the eponymous "trial", which she refers to as the Victorians' suspicion of the supernatural powers which they attributed to women such as menstruation, psychic abilities, religious prophecy, and the sexual stimulation of men. Her method of examining these topics usually proceeds by beginning her chapters (which are barely linked) with a summary of some event of the day which centered around a woman and some paranormal phenomenon and then a close reading of books, usually novels, which seem to her to speak to how society reacted to what she refers to as the Occult Woman. In general, the reader ends up getting a great deal of menstruation, religious visions, and, especially, spirit mediums. I'm no expert on, or fan of, literary criticism, but it must be said that almost all of this struck me as rather pedestrian, and the too-numerous misspellings, bungled names, and homonym errors didn't inspire confidence; I was much more interested in this when she left the library and described the broader social and political life of Victorian England. That didn't happen too often.… (altro)