Also Georgiana

This ambitious first novel looks at many different kinds of female travail in Victorian England. In 1829, Georgiana, raised in shadowy circumstances in a rigid Cumberland household, learns that she is illegitimate and, consequently, disenfranchised. When she reaches her majority, she is summarily sent to a branch of the distinguished Curwen family, who are related to Fletcher Christian of Bounty notoriety. There she begins to fill in the lacunae in her history. She learns that her mother, another Georgiana, a free spirit who rejected the conventional mores, was disowned by the Curwens. Developing her own identity, Georgiana follows her mother's lead, becoming a recognized artist and a fully sexual being in the diverse milieus of London, Paris and Dublin. Though overlong and busily plotted, this historic romance catches the flavor of a period of social ferment when women's rights were beginning to be asserted in a male-dominated society. (May 18)