Learned by Heart
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3.3 • 12 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“A wrenching love story” (Chris Bohjalian, The Washington Post) based on the true story of two girls who fall secretly, deeply, and dangerously in love at boarding school in 19th century York, from the bestselling author of Room and The Wonder.
Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister’s five-million-word secret journal, Learned by Heart is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and Anne Lister, a brilliant, troublesome tomboy, who meet at the Manor School for young ladies in York in 1805 when they are both fourteen.
Emotionally intense, psychologically compelling, and deeply researched, Learned by Heart is an extraordinary work of fiction by one of the world’s greatest storytellers. Full of passion and heartbreak, the tangled lives of Anne Lister and Eliza Raine form a love story for the ages.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this heartbreaking historical romance set in the early 19th century, best-selling author Emma Donoghue offers a new view of a familiar story. Fourteen-year-old Eliza Raine, daughter of a deceased British surgeon and an Indian mother she barely remembers, feels totally alone at an all-girls school in northern England. But when she meets a brash new student named Anne Lister—a real-life figure who features in history as one of the earliest out lesbians in British culture—she discovers a kindred spirit who will change everything. Throughout her life, Lister kept an extensive diary, which provides the basic outline for the story, but Donoghue creates something stirring and memorable by shifting the focus to Eliza. With its beautifully lyrical prose and bruising love story, Learned by Heart is a multilayered novel by an author at the top of her game.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Donoghue (Haven) returns with an impressive story inspired by Eliza Raine, who was written about in Anne Lister's coded diaries about her lesbian love life. At the beginning of the 19th century at a chilly boarding school in Yorkshire, 14-year-olds Eliza and Anne share a garret near the servants' quarters. Born in India to an Indian mother and an East India Company man, Eliza has been sent to England for "finishing" by her father, who is subsequently lost at sea, leaving her and her sister with a small fortune and in the care of guardians. Anne is vibrant, defiant, and smarter than most of the other "Middles" in their class, and she soon draws the observant but reserved Eliza into her orbit. In Anne's presence, Eliza grows in confidence and the two become inseparable as their friendship turns sexual. The bonds that form between the two girls ultimately lead to Eliza's tragic undoing, and she ends up in a mental asylum. Donoghue makes good use of her choice to delve into Eliza's perspective rather than Anne's by exploring the steep cost for her protagonist of tethering herself to a rebel. This melancholic love story is imbued with deep feeling and generosity toward its characters.
