The Birdman’s Wife by Melissa Ashley
Affirm Press, 2016

‘The Birdman’s Wife’ is the timely resurrection to prominence of Elizabeth Gould, a fine artist and wife of John Gould, a noted Ornithologist in Regency England. The book tells Elizabeth’s story through courtship, marriage and motherhood, focusing on her work as an artist. As a work of ‘historical fiction,’ the time and multiple settings are so well researched and depicted that they come alive, including the figures of Edward Lear, Charles Darwin and Sir John and Lady Franklin. The Regency world in all its contradiction and change is seen in the lives and rise of the Goulds and their family.

Elizabeth Gould: a modern woman?

It was a clever strategy of Ashley’s to imagine her heroine, Elizabeth Gould, in a modern way, as a woman much like today’s professional mother who had to do it all. Elizabeth is a worker, mother, provider, lover – all pre-modern obstetrics, telephone, and even ocean liner. This depiction encourages readers to identify with Elizabeth, despite the large historical gap and her added assistance of servants, governess and cooks (and even mother and relation to look after assorted children while the Gould’ voyaged to Australia). This stance also allows Elizabeth to voice other ideas narratively, in keeping with modern views regarding the abundant specimens captured during her husband’s expeditions.

It allows Ashley to offer criticism of the practice through the character and also to have Elizabeth liberate some prized captives. To this reader there were parallels between the treatment of the native animals in Australia and that of the Aboriginals. That they were all treated as specimens to be used as the English saw fit, without any qualms of conscience. The unnecessary deaths of Australian animals, captured for the return voyage to England, was particularly hard to bare and written so deftly as to ride that fine balance between the ‘enlightened’ of the modern reader and outdated, immoral 19th century modes of behaviour. The character of Elizabeth at least, shows remorse for such savage waste.

Loss, family and sea travel

Ashley handled the loss of Elizabeth’s early children with great sympathy, compassion and depth, which helped bring the character to life and importantly again differentiate her from the relentless desire to ‘collect’ and ‘possess,’ as seen in her husband.

The voyage to Australia and the rendering of convict era Tasmania was well done and the difficulty for families being separated by hemispheres pre reliable communication added to the layering of the character of Elizabeth. The novel presented five Elizabeth’s: mother, wife, artist, sister and friend, and each role allowed Ashley to further develop and round out her heroine. The interactions between Elizabeth and her brother in Australia were made more moving, knowing she would probably never see him again after she returned to England.

Ashley has a great knowledge regarding birds and taxonomy and this depth and experience comes through on every page, especially the sections when dissections are occurring in the UK, on the voyages, and in Australia. The respect Ashley has for Elizabeth and her life and challenges is also evident and richly shown throughout.

Collecting: a construct of time, place and ideology

Fortuitously, I read the book while on holidays in Tasmania, where it was partly set. As an aside, while in Launceston, I saw ‘The Art of Science – Nicholas Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804’ an art exhibition of French explorers of Australia and their artworks from their voyages. I attended a lecture and was interested to learn that the French didn’t kill and return stuffed specimens for benefactors as the English (Gould et al) did, they drew and painted them only. Interestingly of course, they also only visited Australia, never ‘claiming’ it as their colony. The French expeditions predated the Gould’s.
One of the biggest insights for me from the novel was the act of collecting itself and what was entailed in the Gould expeditions. The detail Ashley provided of the sheer number of specimens killed shocked me. I think I’d always assumed they were all more like the French explorers, who drew from nature, rather than killing and preserving to take back trophies for museums or individual rich collectors.

Art and research creating layered characterisation

Scenes are cleverly written, offering layers of characterisation for multiple characters simultaneously. For example, the portrait painting scenes where the reader learns perhaps more about John Gould and his insecurities, cunning and political maneuvers, than they do of Elizabeth.

It’s hard to choose, but my favourite scenes were those depicting Elizabeth lost in her art, in the sheer ecstasy of creating and seeing something appear and fuse together on her blank page, born from her sheer talent and vision. The near possession Elizabeth experiences while creating the Resplendent Quetzal causes a very moving communion with her deceased children.

Reading the author’s note I was filled afresh with admiration at Ashley’s achievements in rendering Elizabeth Gould, having only eight pages of her diary remaining to act as a decoder for her thoughts and voice. Everything else was gleaned from years of research and study in Australia and America towards Ashley’s PhD. That layering of information and detail is rendered with dexterity.

Book Production Values: Congrats Affirm!

I can’t complete the review without reference to the production values of the book. I’m sure there’s many an Australian author and publisher in awe of this thing of wonder: a hard cover first novel. The beautiful Wedgwood or Robin’s Egg blue with its reproduction of Elizabeth Gould’s nested Fairy-Wrens feeding around a ‘tear’ invite or lure the reader further. Inside there are many illustrations featured in the book, including the pivotal Resplendent Quetzal.

This is an important work of redress allowing a woman of note to step out into the light again from where she had been hidden and neglected behind the plumage of her husband. Thank you Melissa Ashley for letting Elizabeth Gould ruffle some feathers again. I look forward to Melissa’s next book.

For more go to:

http://www.sarahridout.com.au/blog/2017/2/14/i6b3j0x8wst07xktdf68vafiaon8z1

Most of us have enjoyed ornithological art-works as objects of great beauty. They speak to us out of the rich world of birds, and imply their intricate lives as a part of the miracle of nature.

Melissa Ashley has sought to bring this world to life in her first novel, itself an object of great beauty. The life of Elizabeth Gould, the wife of John Gould, celebrated author of Birds of Australia, is explored in detail – she, as a fine illustrative artist in her own right.

We enter her world, one largely ignored by past historians who regarded her husband as the great luminary of his profession. What we do learn, however, is that Eliza was as much a part of the process as John Gould himself.  She was a team player, and a worthy one at that.

Eliza’s life in London, her early childbearing, her absolute devotion to her husband and his endeavors, are rendered in loving detail. We learn so much about the taxidermist’s craft as the author takes us on a journey into this little-known world of stuffing and illustrating birds, all in the name of natural science. Ashley paints it as a triumphant world, at least from the point of view of naturalists themselves, dedicated as they were upon establishing their scientific careers.

The difficulty of leaving her numerous children behind (except for one son, who accompanied them) in order to make the long and hazardous sea voyage to Tasmania is presented to us as a defining moment in the ornithological history of Australia, something that few of us would disagree with. That Australian bird life was brought to the attention of England and the world in the mid-1840s as a landmark event, the author never lets us forget.

Eliza’s story, which is a lonely one punctuated by her husband’s occasional return from expeditions into the hinterland to collect birds, or to Adelaide to join Captain Charles Sturt on one of his ill-fated journeys, reminds us that men of science in the nineteenth century were often obsessive individuals with little regard for their families. Children and wives were no more than social appendages, not people in their own right.

The character of Eliza Gould strikes us one of simple courage married to an utter devotion to her husband. He is handsome beyond words, so Eliza tells us, who seemingly always puts his work before his family, to which she rarely objects. It strikes an odd chord nearly two centuries later to think that men were often so predictably chauvinistic in their behavior.

Aside from drawing every dead bird that he laid before her, Eliza is also expected to give birth to eight children without recourse to abstinence or contraception. John does suggest a contraceptive device to her at one point in the book, but clearly it did not work!

The novel asks us to consider what we think about the craft of taxidermy, however, and how men like John Gould dismissed the death of so many birds in the name of science as being of less importance. Eliza also asks this question of herself on one occasion, but for some reason she fails to confront her husband about the issue. It might have lead to an interesting conversation about our willingness to use creaturely nature for our ends, had she done so.

The truth is that nineteenth-century scientists, with their mania for positing systems, genera, and categories (Darwin included) as a depiction of reality, has lead to cultural carelessness with regard to our fellow creatures sharing the same planet. Of course, this is seeing it through the lens of a later age, but it needs to be addressed as part of our understanding – or lack of – regard for sentient creatures themselves.

Ashley has written a book of careful and detailed research. It is amazing what she has uncovered in her bid to bring the world of ornithology and taxidermy to our attention. The streets of London are also beautifully described, so too daily events in the Tasmanian colony. It brings to mind the descriptions of Sydney Town that Patrick White did so very well in his novel Voss, itself an important observation of early colonial life in Australia.

The Birdman’s Wife is a well-written novel that reveals a great respect for the act of life-painting and taxidermy. Melissa Ashley has brought her own appreciation of birds to the page, and so vividly, in a cool and clearly rendered prose.  We are left in no doubt about their beauty, or their preciousness as a species.

Eliza Gould, too, strikes us as a woman of grave, if unreflective repute. To rectify our view of history, as Ashley has done through her story, nonetheless helps us to understand how such women have contributed more than their fair share to scientific inquiry over the centuries (witness: Eve Curie). This alone is an important observation, and we must be thankful to the author for alerting us to it.

The Birdman’s Wife by Melissa Ashley is a testament to the courage of such women against all odds.

James Cowan

Author of A Mapmaker’s Dream and Desert Father.