
Relations
Jane Miller(Author)
Vintage (Publisher)
Published on 7. October 2004
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-09-945349-9 (ISBN)
Description
In this remarkable book, Jane Miller writes about the experience of being a daughter and a sister, about the intensities of family life and the illuminations that come from the last days of parents. Relations describes a record-keeping kinship and offers portraits of her parents' long marriage, its mysteries and incompatibilities, of her grandfather, the scientist Redcliffe Salaman, and of her great-aunt Clara Collet, one of the first women civil servants. It is a story in which Karl Marx and George Gissing have parts to play.
Here are the tensions of belonging and yet not belonging to an English middle-class at once hospitable to difference and internally divided. More than two hundred years of English history are present in these portraits, which show the dawning emancipation of women and the effects of empire on family life. It is the story of an evolution, of a move out of trade towards public service and the professions, and towards the dramas and family romance of recent times.
Here are the tensions of belonging and yet not belonging to an English middle-class at once hospitable to difference and internally divided. More than two hundred years of English history are present in these portraits, which show the dawning emancipation of women and the effects of empire on family life. It is the story of an evolution, of a move out of trade towards public service and the professions, and towards the dramas and family romance of recent times.
Reviews / Votes
The book's intelligence, wry humour and sense of history (particularly women's history) are compelling -- Blake Morrison * Guardian * This is a book which arouses pleasurable reflection, evoking wonder at the extraordinary nature of what appears obvious, and the elusiveness of those closest to us * Independent * Perfectly paced, intimate memoir * Women and Home * I especially admired Jane Miller's Relations, an astute and skillful investigation into the author's family -- Michael Holyroyd * Guardian *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
346 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-09-945349-9 (9780099453499)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
Jane Miller is Professor Emeritus, London University Institute of Education. She is the author of Many Voices, Women Writing About Men, Seductions, More Has Meant Women: The Feminisation of Schooling and School for Women.