SOURCE: “Maid's Story Part of Browning Lore,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 31, 1991.

In the following positive review, Kendall praises the wry iconoclasm of Lady's Maid.

In Lady's Maid the lady is Elizabeth Barrett Browning; the maid a timid young woman from Newcastle who served her devotedly from 1844 until the poet's death in 1861. During those 17 years, Elizabeth Wilson outgrew her early shyness to become strong and resourceful, not only coping with her invalid employer's capricious moods but managing a marriage and family of her own under conditions that would utterly defeat a less resilient woman.

After the author's distinguished biography of Browning appeared in 1988, Forster found herself haunted by the character and personality of the maid who had played so crucial a role in the poet's life.

Her research into the Barrett and Browning history had yielded tantalizing clues and hints; enough material to provide the skeleton...