Todd - A Man of Genius

JANET TODD was born in Wales and grew up in Britain, Bermuda and Sri Lanka. She has worked in Ghana, Puerto Rico, India, Scotland and England. In the US, at the University of Florida and Douglass College, Rutgers, she became active in the feminist movement and began the first journal devoted to womens writing. She has published on memoir and biography, as well as on authors including Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, Aphra Behn, Byron and members of the Shelley circle. Her lifelong passion has been for female novelists, both the little known and the famous.

A Professor Emerita at the University of Aberdeen and Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Janet Todd is a former President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, where she inaugurated a festival of women writers and established the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. She lives in Cambridge and Venice.

PRAISE FOR A MAN OF GENIUS

A darkly mischievous novel about love, obsession and the burden of charisma, played out against the backdrop of Venices watery, decadent glory Sarah Dunant

Strange and haunting, a gothic novel with a modern consciousness Philippa Gregory

Revealing, surprising, compelling, gripping Miriam Margolyes

A mesmerizing story of love and obsession in nineteenth-century Venice: dark and utterly compelling Natasha Solomons

Intriguing and entertaining; a clever, beguiling, debut. Todd knows her Venice backwards Salley Vickers

A real knack for language with some jaw-droppingly luscious dialogue. I can see the authors pedigree in the story, style, and substance of the book Geoffrey Jennings, Rainy Day Books

PRAISE FOR JANET TODDS PREVIOUS WORK

Todd has a good ear for tone and a deep understanding. An astonishingly thorough book Emma Donoghue

A rip-roaring read Michle Roberts, The Sunday Times

Genuinely original Antonia Fraser, The Times

Todd is one of the foremost feminist literary historians writing in this country. She has devoted her literary career to recovering the lives and works of women writers overlooked and disparaged by generations of male literary scholars Lisa Jardine, Times Literary Supplement

Todd guides us with unfailing buoyancy and a wit all her own through the intricacies of Restoration theatre and politics... [Behns] epitaph seems to suggest her wit is buried with her. Not at all; it is now wondrously resurrected Michael Foot, Evening Standard

Thorough and stimulating... clear readable prose... a fascinating study of the public face of Behn, of its shifting masks and modes Maureen Duffy, Literary Review

Janet Todds brilliant biography weaves a story together with precision, verve and confidence Melanie McGrath, Independent

A juicy portrait, reconstructed... with insight and wit Entertainment Weekly

Pacily plotted, sheds fascinating light even on a relatively well-known story. This is a book which, while accessible enough for the general reader, will also be welcomed by specialists for a wealth of insights Caroline Franklin, Times Literary Supplement

Terrific insight... Todds sound and generous reimagining of womens lives is a splendid work Publishers Weekly (starred)

A meticulously researched retelling of the tumult of the early 19th century through the most tumultuous family of them all. An engaging account of the pain of anonymity in the presence of selfish genius Kirkus

Clearly argued biography, which offers many acute psychological insights Financial Times

Janet Todds new biography brilliantly captures Wollstonecraft as both important and revolutionary. Like Virginia Woolf, Todd interprets this life as a daring experiment. Wollstonecraft is all but resurrected in Janet Todds distinguished book Ruth Scurr, The Times

Todd is an extraordinary researcher and sophisticated critic. This biography conjures a vivid sense of Wollstonecraft as a revolutionary and as a woman, and offers precise insights into the progress of one writers life Ruminator

Janet Todd, a feminist scholar, has done groundbreaking scholarship on women writers of the long eighteenth century. Even Todds throwaway lines are steeped in learning and observation. Todd has documented so ably the daring attempt of a woman to write, both for her daily bread and for immortal fame Ruth Perry, Womens Review of Books

The excellent Cambridge edition looks certain to be the standard critical edition of all Austens works Simon Jarvis, Times Literary Supplement

Essential for libraries, and anyone with a serious interest in Austen... Here are the complete works of Austen, rendered with razor-sharp clarity for a modern audience. Exceptionally useful Duncan Wu, Guardian

SELECTED TITLES BY JANET TODD

Womens Friendship in Literature

Sensibility: An Introduction

Feminist Literary History

The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing and Fiction 16601800

Gender, Art and Death

The Secret Life of Aphra Behn

The Revolutionary Life of Mary Wollstonecraft

Rebel Daughters: Ireland in Conflict

The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen

Death and the Maidens: Fanny Wollstonecraft and the Shelley Circle

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane Austen (General Editor)

Jane Austen: Her Life, Her Times, Her Novels

BITTER LEMON PRESS

A co-publication with Fentum Press

First published in 2016 by

Bitter Lemon Press

47 Wilmington Square

London WC1X 0ET

www.bitterlemonpress.com

Copyright 2016 Janet Todd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher

The moral rights of the author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-908524-60-7 (eB)

Designed and typeset by Jane Havell Associates

For Anita Desai

Great men are meteors designed to burn so that the earth may be lighted Napoleon

even as we idolise the object of our affections, do we idolise ourselves... we walk as if a mist or some more potent charm divided us from all but him Mary Shelley, Valperga

Table of Contents

Contents

Annabella looked at the corpse. Hands and head separate. Blood had leaked from wrists and neck. Fluid covered part of the distorted features. The open eyes were stained so that they glared through their own darkness. A smell of rotting meat.

By itself the face was unrecognisable, yet she knew it was her fathers. What was a father? A man begot a body but not a mind. She prodded the head with her foot. The blood must have congealed for her boot remained clean.

Had she killed him? It wasnt clear. She rather thought she had. She was sure shed not cut him up. She hadnt the strength. She would order the bits thrown in the Arno to mix with filth from the city. She turned away.

How many people do you have to murder before it becomes habitual? Before you cannot remember which corpse is which and who is its dispatcher?

She wiped old blood off her hands with her handkerchief. Her maid would wash it clean.