Between Women
Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England
Introduction
The Female Relations of Victorian England
In 1844 a ten-year-old girl named Emily Pepys, the daughter of the bishop of Worcester, made
the following entry in the journal she had begun to keep that year: "I had the oddest dream last night that I
ever dreamt; even the remembrance of it is very extraordinary. There was a very nice pretty young lady,
who I (a girl) was going to be married to! (the very idea!) I loved her and even now love her very much. It
was quite a settled thing and we were going to be married very soon. All of a sudden I thought of Teddy [a
boy she liked] and asked Mama several times if I might be let off and after a little time I woke. I remember
it all perfectly. A very foggy morning." Emily Pepys found the mere idea of a girl marrying a lady
extraordinary ("the very idea!"). We may find it even more surprising that she had the dream at all, then
recorded it in a journal that was not private but meant to be read by family and friends. As we read her
entry more closely, it ... read full excerpt from Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England ebook
