Dora Damage is an heroine, a woman of courage with great qualities.
As a matter of fact she have to be brave to replace the sick husband – Peter – in the family bookbinding, to deal with the numerous debts, to believe firmly that a woman, in the scenary of a mid ‘800 London, can do a job considered exclusively male, to choose to rebind books defined immoral and considered illegal to distribute and publish, but not to own.
Its soft and charming binding of Decameron, of Petronius Satyricon, of Ovid Ars amatory, arouse the interest of Sir Knightley and his friends – the “Sauvages Nobles” – a sort of secret “society of vice”, becoming her more profitable customers.
Dora is a strong woman and in hers kitchen “is not lacking the parsley” that abounds where the woman takes controls; making a virtue of necessity and, nonetheless, she manages to keep intact even when in her life will enter Diprose, her unscrupulous intermediary of fees, and Din – the black slave she welcomed as an apprentice in the workshop.
Will not be the gory contents to make her lose sight of her goal, to give her daughter – the little Lucinda – a better life; nor the emotions felt in contact with Din. It will be him to teach her that love is sacrifice because sometimes you have to be prepared to lose a loved one to show him your love.
The measure of love is what we are willing to lose in his name.
Dora is the bookbinder in “The journal of Dora Damage” the first and only historical novel written by Belinda Starling and published post-mortem.
Time of reading: a week
Photography: Sara Cartelli.
© The Eat Culture.
