Novel 061: M.E. Braddon, Lost for Love (1874)

January 14, 2019 David Bywaters

William Powell Frith - The Artist’s Model

A rising doctor, a beautiful heiress, an impulsive young painter, and a poor city girl are entangled by love and betrayal.

The great M.E. Braddon (see Novel 004) was among the most often and unjustly maligned of Victorian novelists. Contemporary critics never tired of blaming her for Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), as the worst consequence of an unhealthy vogue for “sensation novels.” And her improbable plots are easy to mock. At the same time, they are consistently engrossing; while her characters are vivid and often surprisingly complex, her settings evocative, and her style subtle, witty, and exact.

“When our fault-finding is done with we thank Miss Braddon for a treat. Her novels are always agreeable reading and have as much genuine merit as would set up a dozen of her rivals. Her descriptions of Voysey Street and other districts are delightful.” Sunday Times, September 27, 1874

“The real secret of her success is that her people are exactly the same kind of commonplace, everyday folk as we are ourselves, and as our friends are.” Observer, September 27, 1874

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 (Tauchnitz ed.) https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_5HAdetMocuQC/page/n5

v.2 (Tauchnitz ed.) https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_lNzrF7wZ5JsC/page/n7

Novel 060: Anne Beale, Gladys the Reaper (1860)

January 7, 2019 David Bywaters

An Irish orphan seeks her Welsh relations.

Anne Beale (1816-1900) wrote some twenty novels between 1844 and 1891. This one, set in her native Wales, has vivid characters and an endearingly contrived plot (though the treacle does run a little thick in the last volume).

A “half-pastoral Welsh story”; the plot “may be said perhaps rather to have been well felt than cunningly devised. It is unquestionably interesting, but a quiet sense of what is good and beautiful in life is the chief grace of the tale.” Examiner, October 27, 1860

“An interesting, natural story, written with evident care and pains.” Athenaeum, November 10, 1860

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/gladysreaperbya03bealgoog

v.2 https://archive.org/details/gladysreaperbya02bealgoog

v.3 https://archive.org/details/gladysreaperbya00bealgoog

Novel 059: Justin McCarthy, Linley Rochford (1874)

December 31, 2018 David Bywaters

A marriage goes wrong.

Justin McCarthy (1830-1912), an important Irish politician as well as a journalist and novelist, published some 25 works of fiction between 1866 and 1901. The contrast here between the attitudes of the husband and wife towards life and each other is particularly well delineated.

“Mr. McCarthy’s language is correct and well chosen: the events of his story bear each its due and proportionate share in working it out; his scene is not over-crowded with characters, and those whom he introduces are reasonable, probable, and consistent with themselves.” Athenaeum, October 10, 1874

“Besides their general truthfulness to nature, there is mostly to be discovered playing round the several characters that lambent flame of humour which is serviceable in lighting up particular traits and idiosyncracies, and setting them clearly in the reader’s eye.” Examiner, October 17, 1874

“A close observer and excellent delineator of character, Mr. McCarthy contrives to combine in his portraits reality and originality, and while he does not disdain to mention trifling incidents and minute but distinctive traits, he never wearies by prolixity.” Morning Post, October 22, 1874

Download this week’s novel:

v.1: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000048C36#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1144%2C-246%2C3754%2C2524

v.2: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000048C72#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-246%2C0%2C2958%2C1988

v.3: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000048C8A#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-217%2C0%2C2994%2C2012

Novel 058: Julia Day, The Old Engagement (1851)

December 24, 2018 David Bywaters

A middle-aged woman on a visit to a friend meets again the man who loved her in youth.

Nothing is known of Julia Day except that she wrote two novels, of which this was the first. Its unusual lack of conflict is oddly refreshing, its characters—and the society they collectively evoke— vivid and lifelike.

“One of the most cheerful books that we ever read, . . . full of cordiality and comfort and delicate little markings of character.” Athenaeum, November 29, 1851

“As well-knit and compact a story in a small compass as we ever remember to have seen. This tale is a perfect gem in its way, the materials and the workmanship, to employ the chapmen's phrase, being worthy of each other. The events are so perfectly natural, the characters are drawn with such truth and vivacity, and the whole is set before us with such beautiful, unlaboured grace of style, that we are rapidly, but insensibly, carried from the first page to the last, with a feeling at the end, we must acknowledge, of disappointment that we have not more. . . . Though the space be small in which they have to display themselves,” the characters “are painted with a minuteness and finish worthy of a literary velvet Brueghel.” Bentley’s Miscellany, 1852

“A pleasant book, well written, and full of wholesome morality.” American Whig Review, September, 1852

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http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000003D5D8#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-807%2C-129%2C2986%2C2562

Novel 057: Constance Fenimore Woolson, Anne (1882)

December 17, 2018 David Bywaters

A woman grows up on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, then moves east.

Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894), the grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper, published some six novels. This one shows much variety: regionalist detail at the beginning, social satire in the middle, melodrama (and the Civil War) at the end.

“We venture to say that Anne is one of the most remarkable works of fiction that has appeared for many years. It is remarkable for its own sake—for animation of plot and variety of character; and it is remarkable also as holding a place midway between the old American novel of incident and the modern American novel of analysis.” Academy, July 21, 1882

“The reader is held under the delightful impression, not that he is to find something in the next chapter to reward him, but that every turn and eddy in the stream will be worth his attention. . . . As to characters, they crowd the stage with an assemblage of powerfully-drawn actors, each marked with unmistakable individuality.” Independent, Sept. 7, 1882

Download this week’s novel:

https://archive.org/details/annenove00wool

Novel 056: Margaret Oliphant, The Unjust Steward (1896)

December 10, 2018 David Bywaters

A poor clergyman places himself in a moral quandary.

This is one of the last of Oliphant’s hundred-some novels (for others see Novels 007 & 008). She had been publishing for almost half a century and had come to seem old-fashioned. The Academy’s critic, for example, after confessing a “sneaking fondness” for Oliphant, points out that she “began to write before the days when fiction became an art, and no doubt her conceptions of the possibilities and obligations of her calling are, in comparison with modern lights, limited.” This false perception of the culture of 1849 says a lot about that of 1896. Anyway, old or not, Oliphant provides here a searching analysis of a complex, ambivalent, self-deceived character’s struggles to reconcile the moral with the expedient.

We are “transported by the writer’s easy art into an old-world atmosphere, redolent of the true flavour of a social humour not quite forgotten, but sufficiently removed from the commonplace banalities, the sexual problems, and the topical ingenuities of the day.” Athenaeum, December 19, 1896

Oliphant’s “stories are always characterised by an old-world courtliness and a wonderful sympathy with the thoughts and feelings of old and young alike. Everything she puts her pen to is thoroughly entertaining.” Liverpool Mercury, December 23, 1896

Download this week’s novel:

http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004248C#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-722%2C-129%2C2990%2C2565

Novel 055: Annie Keary, Janet's Home (1863)

December 3, 2018 David Bywaters

The lives of a scholar, his disinherited Welsh wife, and their four children.

Annie Keary (1825-1879) wrote some ten novels between 1856 and her death. The early chapters of this one, recounting the narrator’s emergence from childhood, are especially effective.

“Lovers of incident may find it tedious; but it is a book of much earnest and deep thought. . . . Each portrait is complete.” Reader, Nov. 14, 1863

It has “a simple, realistic power that enlists our sympathies at once.” The story “is slight in itself, but receives weight and dignity from the subtle insight into character exhibited by the authoress.” London Review, Dec. 19, 1863

“Not only is the narrative carried on with the utmost simplicity, but it is not indebted for a single particle of the effect to anything beyond the legitimate action and probable complications of simple and natural causes.” Saturday Review, January 9, 1864

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http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=oxfaleph014525999&context=L&vid=SOLO&search_scope=LSCOP_ALL&tab=local&lang=en_US

Novel 054: W.E. Norris, Thirlby Hall (1884)

November 26, 2018 David Bywaters

John Lavery, A Conquest, a Heart for a Rose

A young man becomes entangled with a scapegrace cousin and a charming adventuress.

This was Norris’s fourth novel, and like his third, No New Thing (see Novel 002)—and like the author’s 60-some other novels and story collections—it features a witty, lucid style and carefully defined, memorable characters. So by 1884 the most prestigious critics are already getting tired of him. “Exceedingly tedious,” says the Athenaeum; the Academy finds only the first volume meritorious; the Saturday Review dismisses the whole as “too clever.” Nothing annoys professional critics so much as the consistent excellence that explains itself, doesn’t develop into something new, and so leaves them nothing to say.

“It is distinguished by a singular mellowness of tone and perfection of style, as well as by its power to enchain the reader’s interest from first to last. The author’s way of regarding society is agreeably dispassionate; he is satirical without being sardonic, and treats wrongdoing with a severity that is free from despair.” Chicago Tribune, February 9, 1884

“Easy description, keen observation of the foibles of people, and presentment of characters in excellent relief.” New York Times, February 11, 1884

“One of the most interesting novels that we have come across for a long time, pleasant to read as regards both substance and style, clear and fresh in its delineations of character, and thoroughly healthy in tone throughout. . . . Mr Norris’s finished sketches are not less accurate than easy, and . . . have a vigour and originality not often traceable in the fiction of the day.” Observer, May 18, 1884.

Download this week’s novel:

http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=oxfaleph014580025&context=L&vid=SOLO&search_scope=LSCOP_ALL&tab=local&lang=en_US

Novel 053: Charlotte Yonge, The Daisy Chain (1856)

November 19, 2018 David Bywaters

John Henry Frederick Bacon, The Golden Butterfly, The Harvey Family

The eleven motherless children of a town doctor grow up.

I have featured over 50 novelists during this website’s first year; I now return to some favorites, and first to Charlotte Yonge (Novel 003). She is not utterly forgotten—there is a website devoted to her work, run by a club which also publishes a journal—but in a properly ordered world she would have at least as many readers as, say, Charles Dickens. If her religiosity seems tedious to the modern reader (as it did even to many of her contemporaries), so does Dickens’s sentimentality. But like Dickens she creates a vivid, unforgettable world like that of no other writer, one in which the sympathetic reader cannot spend too much time. This is the first of the long (it is half as long again as the average three-volume Victorian novel) “family chronicles” that represent her most distinctive work.

“Each character speaks so naturally for itself that the reader seems to be one of the ‘Chain,’ and sitting in family conclave round the hearth. . . . So many young heroes and heroines with their instructors” allow Yonge “ample opportunities for exercising her peculiar genius for minute sketches of character.” Athenaeum, April 5, 1856

“This work is . . . a minutely detailed, and highly finished picture of one of our dear English homes, with its loves and losses, trials and triumphs. Here our authoress is in her element, depicting home scenes, and home ease and freedom: she evidently delights in the little social kingdom she creates. This lady is alone in the beauty with which she delineates children’s characters”; they are “real flesh and blood, treading their paths with stumbles and falls like the rest of us.” British Quarterly Review, July 1856

The characters “become as familiar to us as real acquaintances. . . . Reading the ‘Daisy Chain’ is like taking a walk through a plain country, which does not appear romantic at first sight” and feeling “the sense of living joy which animates creation.” New Quarterly Review, July 1856

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http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000043BD8#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-90%2C-246%2C2791%2C2394

Novel 052: Anne Manning, The Ladies of Bever Hollow (1858)

November 12, 2018 David Bywaters

John Constable, Brightwell Church and Village

A refined invalid lady, living with her healthy sister, helps younger neighbors with their problems.

Anne Manning (1807-1879), author of over forty novels, made her reputation with historical stories narrated in period style; this, however, has a contemporary setting: subtly realized characters are quietly placed in serio-comic conflict.

“A charming story, healthy and genial, and with a simplicity of construction befitting a story of English country life.” Sharpe’s London Journal, July, 1858

“Thoroughly English . . . a physician might successfully recommend the perusal of these volumes to any patient . . . instead of a change of air. . . . The characters are drawn from nature . . . not the old property-characters from the novelist’s stores.” Manning is “a literary Gainsborough.” Athenaeum, July 3, 1858

“It may do some thoughtless people good to learn how much of beauty and of interest can be found or fancied in the lives of two old maids.” London Review, October, 1858.

Download this week’s novel:

v.1: https://archive.org/details/ladiesofbeverhol01mann

v.2: https://archive.org/details/ladiesofbeverhol02mann

Novel 051: Susan Morley, Aileen Ferrers (1874)

November 5, 2018 David Bywaters

A sixteen-year-old girl, newly engaged to a gamekeeper, is suddenly adopted by a long-lost aristocratic aunt.

Susan Morley (according to Adrian Room’s Dictionary of Pseudonyms she was Sarah Frances Spedding, 1836-1921) published five novels between 1874 and 1888. Nothing more is known of her. In this, her first novel, the style, pacing, characterization, and setting are all impressively assured, and the plot dilemma interestingly handled.

“Its unforced pathos and simple language, its delicate contrasts of light and shade, its knowledge of dramatic effect with true insight into human nature, combine to render it an uncommon book . . . a singularly graceful story, told in . . . a singularly pure and unaffected style.” Academy, June 20, 1874

“It is a charming prose idyll, well and simply told; its seeming simplicity being the result of consummate art. Tender, pathetic, and truthful to nature, it . . . is no ephemeral novel. As a study of character it cannot fail to take a high place in literature. Moreover there is a completeness and finish about it, even as a mere tale, which is quite refreshing. In her delineations of character Miss Morley is peculiarly exhaustive without being tedious. Fearful lest our unqualified admiration might have run away with our critical judgment we have carefully and dispassionately sought for a flaw in this graceful story, but have found none. Its style, diction, and purity of thought combine to render it one of the most perfect novels it has ever been our good fortune to meet with.” Morning Post, August 31, 1874

“What strikes us . . . is the tact with which Miss Morley manages her characters” and “the common sense view which Miss Morley takes of life.” Westminster Review, October 1874

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004EC84#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-275%2C0%2C3168%2C1977

v.2 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004EC8A#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1266%2C-126%2C4013%2C2505

Novel 050: J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (1864)

October 29, 2018 David Bywaters

A shy young heiress is left in the care of her uncle, a suspected murderer.

J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), an Irish journalist and novelist, wrote some 20 novels beginning in 1845; he specialized in the creation of eerie atmosphere.

Though sometimes strained and improbable, this novel “is rather to be taken as a highly wrought romance than as a picture of mere every-day life and its issues. Enough that the novel is well-written, paints some strongly-wrought dream figures, and one or two very well-drawn characters of real substantial life, that it also excites curiosity, and sustains a very strong interest from the beginning to the end." Examiner, December 24, 1864.

“Mr. Le Fanu has the gift of working upon the imagination of his readers, until every description of still life—a room, a picture, a piece of furniture, the entire house—becomes instinct with significance. . . . The author’s artistic imagination touches every object, however small or apparently insignificant, giving them a meaning like a song without words.” Athenaeum, January 7, 1865.

La Fanu “is feverishly intent on producing a series of Rembrandt effects. . . . Seen through this ghostly medium, all the characters, from the principals to the merest supernumerary, appear more or less weird or unearthly.” Saturday Review, February 4, 1865.

Download this week's novel:

https://archive.org/details/unclesilastaleof00lefa_0

Novel 049: Julia Cecilia Stretton, Mr. and Mrs. Asheton (1859)

October 22, 2018 David Bywaters

A virtuous young lady marries a proud aristocrat.

Julia Cecilia Stretton (1812-1878) wrote some eleven novels in middle age, between 1855 and 1869. In this, a good style and several entertaining minor characters make up for a sometimes strained plot with a sentimental conclusion.

It is “impossible to get through its first chapter without experiencing an unwonted degree of interest which will grow” as the reader proceeds. “The author departs . . . from established custom in not making marriage the climax of the story.” Spectator, November 12, 1859

“A novel of great merit, exhibitng the constructive faculty of the author in a very high degree, and written in an easy, practised style.” Observer, November 14, 1859

“Very agreeable . . . full of interest, and totally without . . . affectation.” Literary Gazette, November 26, 1859

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/mrmrsasheton01stre

v.2 https://archive.org/details/mrmrsasheton02stre

v.3 https://archive.org/details/mrmrsasheton03stre

Novel 048: Frank Smedley, Frank Fairlegh (1850)

October 15, 2018 David Bywaters

Four pupils of a private tutor have adventures, grow up, and meet various fates.

Frank Smedley (1818-1864), a journalist and editor, wrote only four novels before succumbing to ill health in middle age. This, his first (serialized 1846-48) features amusing (if flat) characters, a pleasant style, and an often silly but usually entertaining plot. (The novel, by the way, is partly set in Cambridge, not Oxford—but I like this painting.)

The characters “are nicely and unaffectedly marked. They . . . get into scrapes in a manner sufficiently easy and natural.” The author’s “style is clear of trick and vulgarity” and “his scenes are alive.” Athenaeum, April 27, 1850

A “humorous and right-minded” novel “full of Pickwickian fun.” The plot “contains sufficient of adventure to carry it on with due interest,” and the characters “are well contrasted and developed.” It will suit “the merry and wise of the old school of English readers.” New Monthly Magazine, June, 1850

Download this week’s novel:

https://books.google.com/books?id=YENWAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Novel 047: Lady Charlotte Bury, The Manoeuvring Mother (1842)

October 8, 2018 David Bywaters

Charles Lock Eastlake, The Lily—Portrait of Miss Bury (Lady Charlotte Bury's daughter)

An ambitious gentlewoman has five daughters whom she means to marry as aristocratically as possible.

Lady Charlotte Bury (1775-1861), daughter of the sixth Duke of Argyll and herself the mother of nine children, wrote, in addition to poems and scandalous memoirs, some sixteen novels. In addition to the complex, convincing title character she provides here a leisurely series of subplots—a few of them exaggerated, but many successfully comic, and some genuinely moving.

Bury shows a “full and wise reliance on nature as it exists in itself” and a “happy skill in putting the commonplaces of life and character in an uncommonplace point of view”; the resulting novel is “ true to English life and nature as they actually exist in our own day.” New Monthly Magazine, July, 1842

“She is many degrees nearer to Miss Austen, than any of her contemporaries.” Athenaeum, July 2, 1842

“The quiet unexaggerated pictures, the lively dialogues, the nice discrimination of various kinds of weakness, the contrasts of folly and vice, the dangers of a false education and a half morality, were chiefly noticeable in the writer’s first production, and present themselves in this with unabated freshness." Examiner, July 9, 1842

Download this week’s novel:

v. 1 https://archive.org/details/manuvringmother01bury

v. 2 https://archive.org/details/manuvringmother02bury

v.3 https://archive.org/details/manuvringmother03bury

Novel 046: Arthur C. Conder, The Seal of Silence (1901)

October 1, 2018 David Bywaters

Thomas Benjamin Kennington, Reading the Letter

Two cousins, one mercurial, the other slow but sure, quarrel over a woman, with surprising, mostly comic, consequences.

Arthur R. Conder (1876-1901), barely out of college when he wrote this novel, died shortly after its completion of heart failure. Read it, and you will join contemporary reviewers in their regret that he did not live to enjoy a long career.

“The plot is entirely diverting if not altogether probable. . . . The writer regards his characters with a whimsical sympathy and has been able to make them eccentric and lovable at the same time. . . . The quaint architecture of this little book is beyond criticism—compact, peculiar, facetious.” Chicago Tribune, July 18, 1901

“It is full of quiet humor, keen characterization and a certain freshness which is all too rare among the novels of the day.” Baltimore Sun, August 15, 1901

“The plot . . . is good, and the interest is well maintained; but it is in the freshness of the treatment, the briskness of the narrative, the excellent characterisation—a certain individualizing of every-day characters—that the great charm and merit of the book lie.” Bookman, October 1901

Download this week’s novel:

https://archive.org/details/sealsilenceanov00condgoog

Novel 045: Beatrice May Butt, Alison (1883)

September 24, 2018 David Bywaters

Thomas Francis Dicksee, Distant Thoughts

A virtuous young lady marries a scholarly older man who needs help caring for his late sister’s children.

Beatrice May Butt (1856-1918) published some fifteen works of fiction between 1876 and 1908; in this she offers a quiet plot, some vivid characters, and a subtle sense of personal relationships.

“A pretty story, with a happy blending of the poetical and the prosaic.” Times, November 9, 1883

“Those who like a quiet story, without sensationalism of any kind, but yet, at the same time, an admirable study of the inner life and its affections, will find undoubted pleasure in this work. . . . The author’s style is smooth and pleasant, and occasionally rises into dignity and pathos.” Academy, November 10, 1883

“The heroine’s pure and affectionate though passionate nature is well exhibited.” Athenaeum, December 1, 1883.

Download this week’s novel:

v. 1: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004AFFA#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-31%2C0%2C2547%2C1856

v. 2: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004B7FE#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-59%2C0%2C2627%2C1915

v.3: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004B000#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-95%2C-1%2C2651%2C1933

Novel 044: Eliza Lynn Linton, Patricia Kemball (1874)

September 17, 2018 David Bywaters

A forthright, virtuous young lady is forced by the death of the sea-captain uncle who raised her to move to the home of another uncle, a vulgar millionaire, in whose household lives also another niece, beautiful but devious.

Eliza Lynn Linton (1822-1898), who wrote some 27 novels beginning in 1846, was well known as a journalist and social critic as well as a novelist: her essays on “the girl of the period”—a vain, loud creature obsessed with fashion and indifferent to domestic virtue—were notorious. Here she arranges some vividly hateful, yet believable, characters in a gripping plot.

“An acute and serious study of certain phases of English society . . . written in a very clear, lively, and interesting style, with a pleasant effervescence of satire and epigram”; it has “enough . . . of graphic portraiture and witty observation to furnish materials for half-a-dozen novels of the everyday kind.” Saturday Review, November 21, 1874

“A very clever and well-constructed story” which “climbs at the last to a very powerful and well-managed situation. . . The characters are distinct, the individuality of each man and woman being put together bit by bit with pains and care.” Times, December 5, 1874

“A rousing heart-stirring novel. . . . Even those readers who do not care for social questions, will enjoy Mrs. Lynton’s excellent character-drawing.” Morning Post, December 18, 1974

Download this week’s novel:

https://archive.org/details/patriciakemballn00lind

Novel 043: Thomas Cobb, The Bishop's Gambit (1901)

September 10, 2018 David Bywaters

Walter Crane, The Moat and Bishop's Palace, Wells Cathedral — Walter Crane, The Moat and Bishop’s Palace, Wells Cathedral

A bishop’s daughter’s fiancé is accused of adultery in a divorce case.

Thomas Cobb (1854-1932) wrote some 86 works of fiction beginning in 1887. He specialized in breezy comedies like this one.

“A book of ingenious complications and bright dialogue . . . the story is human and pure comedy.” Academy, February 2, 1901

The author “is saving us the trouble and humiliation of always going to France for good light fiction. There are few English authors who have the art of being light without being empty.” This novel “shows no falling off in interest and vivacity. . . . We read it on the South Eastern Railway, and forgot where we were.” Speaker, February 16, 1901

It has “a clever, novel plot in its way” with “an air of light comedy.” Athenaeum, February 23, 1901

Download this week’s novel:

http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph014873955

Novel 042: Anonymous, My Lady (1858)

September 3, 2018 David Bywaters

Richard Buckner, Emily, 1st Viscountess Hambleden, and her Daughter

A woman and her children are left in trouble after the husband and father absconds with another woman.

The anonymous author is known to have written two novels, of which this was the first. Some sources (I don’t know the origin of the claim) identify her with Emma Willsher Atkinson, the author of last week’s novel; Troy Bassett finds no basis for this, and the novel seems to me by another hand entirely. Read both and make up your own mind. Whoever she (or he) may be, she (it seems the likelier choice) provides an involving, sophisticated analysis of the consequences of Victorian marital failure.

It is “told . . . with great strength of feeling, is well written, and has a plot that is by no means commonplace.” Examiner, September 16, 1858

It has “the freshness of inexperience.” Though the plot “verges upon melodrama,” the characters are “distinctly drawn, and often wear an appearance of individuality.” Spectator, October 2, 1858

“The subject and structure of the story are well chosen and well planned, the conversations are natural, and the characters neither hackneyed nor untrue.” Literary Gazette, October 23, 1858

“It is not in every novel we can light upon a style so vigorously graceful—upon an intelligence so refined without littleness, so tenderly truthful, which has sensibility rather than poetry; but which is also most subtly and searchingly powerful.” Dublin University Magazine, April. 1859

Download this week's novel:

https://archive.org/details/10491482.1530.emory.edu

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A rising doctor, a beautiful heiress, an impulsive young painter, and a poor city girl are entangled by love and betrayal.

An Irish orphan seeks her Welsh relations.

A marriage goes wrong.

A middle-aged woman on a visit to a friend meets again the man who loved her in youth.

A woman grows up on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, then moves east.

A poor clergyman places himself in a moral quandary.

The lives of a scholar, his disinherited Welsh wife, and their four children.

A young man becomes entangled with a scapegrace cousin and a charming adventuress.

The eleven motherless children of a town doctor grow up.

A refined invalid lady, living with her healthy sister, helps younger neighbors with their problems.

A sixteen-year-old girl, newly engaged to a gamekeeper, is suddenly adopted by a long-lost aristocratic aunt.

A shy young heiress is left in the care of her uncle, a suspected murderer.

A virtuous young lady marries a proud aristocrat.

Four pupils of a private tutor have adventures, grow up, and meet various fates.

An ambitious gentlewoman has five daughters whom she means to marry as aristocratically as possible.

Two cousins, one mercurial, the other slow but sure, quarrel over a woman, with surprising, mostly comic, consequences.

A virtuous young lady marries a scholarly older man who needs help caring for his late sister’s children.

A forthright, virtuous young lady is forced by the death of the sea-captain uncle who raised her to move to the home of another uncle, a vulgar millionaire, in whose household lives also another niece, beautiful but devious.

A bishop’s daughter’s fiancé is accused of adultery in a divorce case.

A woman and her children are left in trouble after the husband and father absconds with another woman.