Koven makes a convincing argument that love and its emotions are worthy of serious consideration within histories of politics of this period. . . . Koven's methodology for filling in the blanks and reconstructing Dowell's life leads to rich and rewarding readings of institutions and other cultural texts.---Angharad Eyre, Journal of Victorian Culture
"This powerful, moving, and innovative book tells the story of the relationship between two women—one a 'grande dame of global pacifism and social justice' and the other a 'Cockney cosmopolitan' who worked as a match girl in the United Kingdom and abroad. Koven brilliantly achieves exactly what he sets out to do: dissolve the boundaries between 'lives' and 'histories.'"—Deborah Epstein Nord, Princeton University
"Koven's beautifully written and exquisitely researched book illuminates, with brilliance and great perception, issues of class, capitalism, empire, gender, and love in early twentieth century Britain."—Jane Shaw, Stanford University
While it's hard enough to recover the lives of women from centuries past, it's an even greater challenge to recover the lives--the full, complex, interior lives--of the working poor. And when a central figure is at once poor and a woman? That Koven has produced such a vivid and detailed rendering of [Nellie] Dowell¹s life is remarkable in and of itself. . . . Koven's illuminating readings of [Nellie's] letters form what I would argue is one of the most powerful analyses of an early-century poor woman's interior life. . . . His achievement is significant.---Lisa Rodensky, Women's Review of Books
Koven's book sensitively uses a personal relationship to examine both the hopes and the failures of the attempts to cross class boundaries at a time and place where they ruled supreme.---Margaret Quamme, Columbus Dispatch
[An] impressive work of painstaking and imaginative scholarship. . . . Rich, critical, and warm-hearted, The Match Girl and the Heiress will be inspiring and provoking historians of affective emotion, social work, immanence theology, and fraternalism for some time to come.---Geoff A.C. Ginn, Health and History
The Match Girl and the Heiress is a tale of two intertwined lives, but it is also a story of many places, thoughtfully and richly realized. . . . At the heart of this excellent work is an engrossing, sensitive, and thoughtful story of history, theology, politics, and genuine love.---James Norton, Christian Science Monitor
Congratulations to Seth Koven for his comprehensive research into the history of Kingsley Hall. An academic work and while not a light read, provides a fascinating insight into the beginnings of the labour movement trades unionism, Christian socialism, pacifism, and the fives and times of those who worked with great conviction for better social conditions.---Doreen Kendall, Stone Stories
Seth Koven's The Match Girl and the Heiress . . . extends richly into a range of related contexts, from match production to Christian Science. Koven's scholarship is astonishing in its depth and conscientiousness: he proceeds sensitively and ethically, always alert to the limits of interpretation.---Elizabeth Carolyn Miller, Public Books
Winner of the 2015 NAVSA Best book of the Year Award, North American Victorian Studies Association
[An] inventive book.---Helen Rogers, Victorian Studies
Seth Koven has done a remarkable job in shining a light on a hitherto hidden aspect of the multi-faceted story of the main protagonists.---Rosemary Taylor, East London History Society Newsletter
Koven's book sets Nellie and Muriel's relationship in the context of the religion and politics of their era. . . . [T]he most memorable parts are about the unique relationship between these two women. It also serves as a timely reminder of how cruel life was for the poor when there was no welfare state to act as a safety net.---Rachel Trethewey, Independent
Rutgers University historian Koven (Slumming) has fashioned a scholarly yet highly readable jewel that tackles the big issues of early-20th-century England in an intimate way. Through the lives of Muriel Lester and Nellie Dowell, he brilliantly illuminates the growth of global capitalism, a revolutionary 'God is love' Christian theology, war and pacifism, feminism and sexuality, and class and gender relations.
Koven's book is finely researched and detailed as it traces the cross‑fertilisation of nonconformist religious movements with those of the early socialist, pacifist and suffragette elements of East London's political radicalism.
"This is a beautifully written and researched book, one that will stand as one of the best books in modern British history for years to come. The Match Girl and the Heiress is destined to become an instant classic. There is no other book like it."—Sharon Marcus, author of Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England
Winner of the 2015 Stansky Prize, North American Conference on British Studies
Koven demonstrates how these women changed the world's attitude toward the poor.
[An] absorbing narrative.---Andrew Stone, New Zealand Herald
Koven's book is a detailed and nuanced exploration of sincere attempts by dedicated Christians to find better and more equitable ways to live.---Lynn MacKay, Labour-Le Travail
Seth Koven's new book is a bold, brilliant and deeply moving account of [Lester's and Dowell's] contrasting lives. . . . It is Koven's evident admiration for the imagination and conviction involved in the struggle to live ethically that makes this book such a terrific read.---Nadia Valman, Times Higher Education
One of HistoryBuff.com’s 10 Can’t-Miss History Books of 2015
"Seth Koven's luminous account of the unlikely chemistry between Muriel Lester (self-abasing slumming lady) and Nellie Dowell (self-improving match factory girl) sheds new light on their shared milieu of Edwardian Christian radicalism: a counterculture of religious modernism founded on a theology of love, with revolutionary opportunities for pacifism, feminism, and anti-imperialism. A rare and brilliant history of the ethical subject."—Leela Gandhi, Brown University
Koven combines masterful analysis and compelling narrative to create an unforgettable story of the friendship between Muriel Lester, the wealthy social activist, and Nellie Dowell, a match factory worker, in late Victorian London.---Theresa Kaminski, History Buff
Remarkable reading. . . . Muriel and Nellie shine through the pages of The Match Girl and the Heiress.---John Rennie, East End Life
[F]ascinating. . . . The great virtue of Koven's approach is his constant probing of surfaces. He is never content simply to mention a school, a hospital, a factory, without examining the policies or commercial pressures, the attitudes of the public, the actual daily round and the experience of those who lived or worked there, asking what it felt like, emotionally and physically. . . . [This] imaginative book, at once an immaculate social and religious history and an intriguing exercise in life-writing, gives both the heiress and the match girl their due.---Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books
Koven's book will fascinate not only readers interested in the history of this period but anyone who has mused on how to practice a Christian social ethic in a society which seems hostile to it. . . . [The Match Girl and the Heiress] beautifully illustrates both the ‘mighty force' of ‘Christian revolutionary love' and its inherent limits.---Michael Ledger-Lomas, Books & Culture
"How ought one to live in a society defined by inequality? Through his subjects, Nellie Dowell and Muriel Lester, Koven tells a detective story of the heart with deep resonance for today's debates about poverty and wealth, class and empire, Christianity and capitalism, gender formation and same-sex desire, the welfare state and voluntarism. The Match Girl and the Heiress is a methodologically and conceptually inspiring work, with a fine sense of empathy, balanced by shrewdly calibrated assessments of motives and consequences."—Deborah Cohen, author of Family Secrets: Shame and Privacy in Modern Britain
"A brilliantly told tale of the unlikely love of two women divided by class but empowered by the ideals and practice of radical Christianity. This 'intimate history' transforms conventional narratives about charity, class, gender, and labor in the early twentieth century."—Lynn Hollen Lees, University of Pennsylvania
[M]eticulously researched.---Caroline Moorhead, Times Literary Supplement
[The Match Girl and the Heiress] is a model for how micro history can tease out macro historical processes. . . . A beautiful account of a time and a place, and however rich and complex the analysis, its arguments and conclusions are not only accessible to a broad readership but have implications that transcend the narrow interests of historians of modern Britain. . . . [A] wonderful read.---Nadja Durbach, American Historical Review
Seth Coven who has poured considerable research into this work, has given us much food for thought. . . . The Match Girl And The Heiress deserves a thorough read and is both entertaining and thought-provoking.---Clare O'Beara, Fresh Fiction
In The Match Girl and the Heiress, inspired by a cache of private writings that reveal a profound relationship between two women activists, [Koven] delves deep into the historical record to build an intriguing story of cross-class devotion--between the social reformer Muriel Lester and 'a half-orphaned Cockney' factory worker named Nellie Dowell.---Nina Burleigh, New York Times Book Review
