BERTRAND'S BROTHER

Sub-titled 'The Marriages, Morals and Misdemeanours of Frank, 2nd Earl Russell', Frank Russell was the grandson of Prime Minister Lord John Russell and the elder brother of philosopher and political activist Bertrand Russell. He was in his own right a radical political reformer and outspoken self-determined moralist. But he was also the black sheep of his illustrious family - a serial adulterer, tried for bigamy in the House of Lords, who as a young man had been sent down from Oxford for supposed homosexual practices. His accuser was his first wife Mabel Edith, the naïve daughter of socialite and 'adventuress' Lady Selina Scott, who forced him repeatedly to publicly defend his good name and honour at a time when male same-sex relationships were reviled and sodomy punishable by up to 10 years' penal servitude. Their decade-long cause célèbre rivalled and was reported alongside the famous misdemeanours of Oscar Wilde. The cultural tensions and moral prejudices of late Victorian and Edwardian eras are exposed, and Frank's innate rebelliousness and deeply embedded sense of injustice are explored. 'Derham writes a forensic account of Frank's battles with a delicious wit and a storyteller's pace.' - T. Ward. 351pp, 40 archive photographs including colour.