The Midhurst Lashes

<p class=ql-align-justify><strong><em>The Midhurst Lashes</em></strong> conflates and adapts as a screenplay the only two novels written by poet Algernon Charles Swinburne: the fragmentary <em>Lesbia Brandon </em>and what may be the best unreadable novel in the English language<em> Love's Cross-Currents</em>.</p><p> </p><p class=ql-align-justify>In books saturated with feeling (however perversely expressed) partly autobiographical partly derived from De Sade and from Laclos' <em>Les Liaisons Dangereuses</em> supremely subtle (and yet operatic) Swinburne creates one of Victorian literature's great characters Helena Lady Midhurst. Midhurst ruthlessly whips her daughter niece nephews and grandchildren into and out of affairs and marriages crowning her manipulations by trying to secure-at any cost to others-the family title for her own great-grandson. Among the sufferers along the way is her grandson Redgie who falls in love with a cousin only to find Midhurst intent on sending her away.</p><p> </p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong><em>The Midhurst Lashes</em></strong> tells a devastating story of control manipulation pain powerlessness helpless surrender ecstasy and love in a <em>haut monde</em> of play rivalry and score-settling.</p><p> </p><p>Includes Meyers's Afterword.</p><p> </p>