The New Life

A daring new novel about desire and the search for freedom in Victorian England


Two Victorian marriages, two dangerous love affairs, one extraordinary partnership . . .

'A very fine new writer' - Kate Atkinson

'Electrifying' - Anne Enright

After a lifetime spent navigating his desires, John Addington, a married man, has met Frank, a working-class printer.

Meanwhile Henry Ellis's wife Edith has fallen in love with a woman - who 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?

'Filled with nuance and tenderness . . . charting the lives of men and women who inspired not only political progress but an entire new way of living and loving' - Colm Tóibín