Tom Crewe
TOM CREWE was born in Middlesbrough in 1989. He has a PhD in nineteenth century British history from the University of Cambridge. Since 2015, he has been an editor at the London Review of Books, to which he contributes essays on politics, art, history and fiction. The New Life is his first novel. Crewe says: 'This is the book I knew I wanted to write long before I actually wrote it. I hope it reveals to readers an unfamiliar Victorian England that will surprise and provoke, inhabited by a generation in the process of discovering the nature and limits of personal freedom, struggling to create a better world as the twentieth century comes into view.'
1 Books Written
Two Victorian marriages, two dangerous love affairs, one extraordinary partnership . . . London, 1894. After a lifetime spent navigating his desires, John Addington, married to Catherine, has met Frank, a working-class printer.Meanwhile Henry Ellis's wife Edith has fallen in love with Angelica - and Angelica wants Edith all to herself.When in 1894 John and Henry decide to write a revolutionary book together, intended to challenge convention and the law, they are both caught in relationships stalked by guilt and shame. Yet they share a vision of a better world, one that will expand possibilities for men and women everywhere.Their daring book threatens to throw John and Henry, and all those around them, into danger. How far should they go to win personal freedoms? And how high a price are they willing to pay for a new way of living?