Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice Paperback – Bargain Price, April 29, 2014

This is a very interesting book, and I highly recommend it, especially if you have seen the movie. There is very little documentary evidence on Dido Belle herself, which means that:1. The book is very short, and 25% of it is appendices and bibliography.2. Most of the book is not about Dido herself, but about other people of color from the time period, Lord Mansfield, and the court cases of the period that advanced the abolition movement.Paula Byrne is a very engaging biographical and historical writer, and she does a good job of drawing a picture of Dido's life from the scraps of record we have, combined with ingenious deductions and surmises, filling in the gaps with historical context and the lives of the people around her.

I have read some of the other reviews and realize that if you didn't want an accurate account of the time surrounding Belle than this is not the book for you. I personally enjoyed this book!The author writes about the times and the happenings surrounding Belle. The reason she does this she tells us is that there really is not a lot of actual written history of Belle. Her family lord Chief Justice her surrogate father(natural great uncle) shields her from the public eye. So the author tells us what the actual accounts of the slave trade and what it means. About her father who was a captain and how and when he may of met and maybe loved Belle's mother.I thought the book was interesting and informative and enjoyed reading and learning more of that part of history which was very unpleasant and inhuman.Well worth reading.

This book is not about Dido Belle...very little is known about her. Most of what's written about her in this book is supposition. It's really about the English slave trade and abolitionists in England. I don't read much non fiction, but I finished this one. Very informative, disturbing of course, and quite interesting.

The book is an attempt to piece together the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a daughter of an English captain and a Carribean slave. Her story is fascinating because of her possible influence on Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice who made significant court rulings contributing to abolution of slavery. She was raised in the Mansfield household, and the author traces her story based on existing records about her and the family she lived with. The gaps in documentation about specific persons are supplemented with descriptions of habits and events of the time and culture they lived in. The book ties together slave trade, sugar trade, law and life stories of several Black individuals and the small Black community in London. The book is motivated by desire to establish the factual backing of a movie about Dido, but knowledge of the movie is not necessary to enjoy the book. The approach to piecing together Dido's biography makes this an unusual read, but I appreciate being shown the pieces behind the author's inferences and conclusions. The book is well-written and flows well.

Know this book was the basis of the recent movie. I was excited to read it before I saw the movie. I was so disappointed. The book was not a novel, the story of Belle. It was a history lesson and account of the Chief Lord Justine. No story line, hardly any details of Belle's life. Not worth the time. I don't know now if the movie will be worth it either.

If you were looking for a novel, this isn't it. If you wanted a history book about Dido Elizabeth Belle, well, this isn't it either. Unfortunately, little is known about the woman called Dido, who shows up in a painting (or two). More information is available about Lord Mansfield, but sadly, there was a riot and a fire which destroyed a lot of his personal documents. So what you get is a book about the time period when they lived, what was going on with the slave ships, how sugar was a big, bloody industry, and hints of the relationship between Dido and Lord Mansfield (and no, it wasn't that kind of relationship!). The author makes a few Jane Austen connections during the course of the book, which I found a bit strange, but it didn't detract from the overall story. It's a quick read, and I know more now than when I started so that's good.

A great background on a very distinct moment in history.

I have read three of Paula Byrne's books recently and enjoyed this one. Bought after seeing the film of the same name (the book is better!). Wonderfully detailed and well researched account of Lord Mansfield and his family, and the early anti slavery movement. I recommend it to anybody interested in British social history of the 18th century. A good read indeed!

This book led the reader to believe it would be more about Belle but, in fact, was much more about the Lord Chief Justice. Having said that, it was interesting enough to read about the progression of the law that I read it to the end.

Very good...!!

It was not clear that the book is different than the story line