title: Life Mask
author:  Emma Donoghue 
description: One of the satisfactions of Emma Donoghue's masterful fourth novel, <i>Life Mask</i>, is the tension between the writer's contemporary interests, like lesbianism and the balance of power in marriage, and her 18th Century subject matter. <i>Life Mask</i> is a fictional recreation of a plausible (but unproven) love triangle between the comedic actress Eliza Farren, the sculptor Anne Damer (the niece of Horace Walpole, a fantastic minor character here), and Edward Smith-Stanley, the twelfth Earl of Derby, a Whig (liberal) politician who left his name to the horse race he founded. Like her bestseller <i><a href="/exec/obidos/ASIN/0156007479/${0}">Slammerkin</a></i>, the novel spins an intricate story from the slightest of historical traces, in this case a single reference in the commonplace book of Hester (Thrale) Piozzi: a snarky four-line epigram that hints at the danger to Miss Farren's reputation in consorting with "one whose name approaches 'Damn Her.'"
zlib_text: **Slammerkin**
  
  Emma Donoghue
  
   **Table of Contents**
  
  Title Page
  
  Table of Contents
  
  ...
  
  Copyright
  
  Dedication
  
  Contents
  
  Epigraphs
  
  Prologue
  
  PART ONE
  
  CHAPTER ONE
  
  CHAPTER TWO
  
  CHAPTER THREE
  
  PART TWO
  
  CHAPTER FOUR
  
  CHAPTER FIVE
  
  CHAPTER SIX
  
  CHAPTER SEVEN
  
  CHAPTER EIGHT
  
  Note
  
  Reading Group Guide
  
  An excerpt from Emma Donoghue's latest novel, Life Mask, available now.
  
  A Harvest Book • Harcourt, Inc.  
  _San Diego New York London_
  
  Copyright © Emma Donoghue 2000
  
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