After her marriage in 1828 to the MP George Norton, the writer Caroline Norton attracted friends and admirers to her salon in Westminster, which included the young Disraeli and the widowed Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. Racked with jealousy, George Norton took the Prime Minister to court, suing him for damages on account of his "Criminal Conversation" (adultery) with Caroline. Despite the unexpected sensational acquittal, Norton was still able to legally deny Caroline access to her three children, all under seven. He also claimed her income as an author for himself, since the copyrights of a married woman belonged to her husband. Caroline refused to despair. She channeled her energies in an area of much-needed reform: the rights of a married woman and, specifically, those of a mother. Over the next few years, she achieved her first landmark victory with the Infant Custody Act of 1839. The author sets the record straight, and in doing brings Caroline Norton to life. -- Adapted from jac

The biography of Caroline Sheridan Norton who was accused by her husband of "criminal conversation" (adultery) in Victorian England. After a not-guilty verdict humiliated her husband, Caroline was cut off, leaving her destitute and forbidden from seeing her sons. For the next thirty years Caroline campaigned for women and battled male-dominated Victorian society, helping to write the Infant Custody Act (1839), and influenced the Matrimonial Causes (Divorce) Act (1857) and the Married Women's Property Act (1870), which gave women a separate legal identity for the first time.