The Tree of Knowledge

Deborah Milton tells the story of her tragic life in her conversations with scholars who come to her impoverished home to look for memories and souvenirs of her famous father, and in conversations with her daughter and her grand daughter. She has reached 70 years old, and we follow her as her memories, both good and bad, become less coherent, to her last words to her daughter. The historical facts of the novel are true - Milton the domestic tyrant who would grand freedom to mankind but not women, the facts about his wives and daughters, the deeply religious beliefs of the 17th century where women were enternally guilty of the original sin of eating from the tree of knowledge. Deborah was deprived not only of material inheritance from her father - she was put into apprenticeship as a seamstrees, refused a dowery, and married a weaver - but felt the most deprived of inheriting his knowledge. She and her sisters were scribners for her father, day and night, but were never taught any meaning to the Greek, Latin and Hebrew words they had to write and recite. Women and the poor should be kept ignorant - by defninition they had no "aptitude."Her person rings entirely true, and deeply sympathetic, lacking in bitterness. She speaks in the terms of the Godly and meek 17th woman which we can find in plays from the time - Eva Figes has done admirable research on the mind set and social setting of poverty in workers' London, including the devastation from illness in insalubrious conditions. And excellent read, and enlightening.