“A lesser life does not seem lesser to the person who leads one” …Diane Johnson’s sensitive, witty and and intelligent biography of Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith (1821-1861), the well-educated and unconventional daughter of the famous artist Thomas Love Peacock and first wife of the equally famous poet George Meredith. “Many people have described the Famous Writer presiding at his dinner table. . . . He is famous; everybody remembers his remarks. . . . We forget that there were other family members at the table-a quiet person, now muffled by time, shadowy, whose heart pounded with love, perhaps, or rage…””