Novel 269: Frances Milton Trollope, The Vicar of Wrexhill (1837)

 

James Jacques Joseph Tissot, In Church

 

A widow falls under the spell of an Evangelical clergyman.

Here is another novel by Trollope, for whom see Novels 029, 079, 138, 189, 190, and 191.

“This is certainly the best novel that Mrs. Trollope has produced, as regards dramatic execution and development of character.  It . . . shows how the highest and best feelings of our nature may be turned by evil guidance and misdirected enthusiasm.” Literary Gazette, September 16, 1837

“Never has the affectation of piety been more mercilessly lashed. . . .  Her object—a laudable one, as every one must admit, has been to show the pernicious effects of sectarian bigotry. . . .  This, Mrs. Trollope has done with unexampled vigour and ability.” Sunday Times, September 17, 1837

A contrasting view:

“To invent a succession of domestic atrocities, and then fasten them upon a particular class of religionists, proves nothing but that the author is an exceedingly illogical and absurd person. . . .  In truth this work is very disagreeable. . . .  Every thing in it is represented in excess . . . ; and the spirit of the whole is that of a perverse and tortuous mind, full of venom. . . .  Other authors contrive to get out of themselves—to lose themselves in the fiction. . . .  Mrs. Trollope never does this; she is always present to us in her books; we feel her influence in the bitter taunt, the vulgar spleen, the ill-natured reproof, the scurrilous criticism, and the giggling cant of good-breeding.” Court Magazine and Monthly Critic, October 1837

Download this fortnight’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/vicarofwrexhill01trol

v.2 https://archive.org/details/vicarofwrexhill02trol

v.3 https://archive.org/details/vicarofwrexhill03trol

Crossword 267: Happy New Year!

 

Frank Cadogan Cowper, Vanity

 

For more than five years I’ve been providing the world with a weekly Victorian novel recommendation and a weekly crossword puzzle. I thought that by now I’d be universally known and beloved. But I’m not, it seems. No one, on hearing my name at a retail outlet or on a customer-service line, has ever exclaimed, “What! No! Not the David Alfred Bywaters!” No street, however short or obscure, has been renamed in my honor. I haven’t been given a Nobel prize; I haven’t been given even a MacArthur “genius” grant, or an honorary degree.

I think that maybe I’ve been too generous, that I’ve made the world ungrateful by kinder treatment than it merits. So I’ve decided, with the new year, to post weekly not both a new crossword and a new Victorian novel recommendation, but either a new crossword or a new Victorian novel recommendation. Next Saturday, then, you’ll find on this site a novel recommendation, and the Saturday after that a new crossword, and so on and on, until my vanity is gratified, or until I grow tired of the whole business altogether.

Meanwhile, happy new year!

Download this week’s crossword:

267-Happy-New-Year!.puz

267-Happy-New-Year!.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

267 Happy New Year!

A crossword of mine will appear Wednesday, January 4, in the Wall Street Journal, and another Sunday, January 8, in the Los Angeles Times.

Novel 265: Annie Carruthers, The Pet of the Consulate (1882)

 

James Jacques Joseph Tissot, Young Ladies Looking at Japanese Objects

 

To escape the drudgery of teaching in Chicago, a young lady exchanges identities with a friend, then becomes engaged and moves to Japan.

Nothing seems to be known of Annie Carruthers, who published another novel or two after this one, without much apparent success.  And yet (if one forgives the improbable plot twists, and ignores the admiring descriptions of the heroine’s fabulous outfits that laughably intrude at the most dramatic moments) it is altogether good, depicting a bad marriage made worse by the setting of a claustrophobic European outpost in Hakodate, Japan.

“A worldly, sensible, and rather cynical story, sufficiently well told to be read with pleasure, . . . really above average in merit, and something more than simply readable.” Athenaeum, April 15, 1882

“Some portions of the book are interesting as giving a faithful view of the life of the isolated English settlement” in Japan. Academy, April 22, 1882

Download this week’s novel:

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph014138903 (Right-click (or control-click, if you have a Mac) on the “view digitized copy” links to download the novel’s three volumes in pdf form)

Crossword 263: Teaser Rates

 

Augustus Leopold Egg, A Teasing Riddle

 

I confess that when I applied the title “Teaser Rates” to this puzzle, I wasn’t sure exactly of the phrase’s meaning.  Was it a sibling-behavior phenomenon studied by child psychologists?  Was it a metric for hair salon workers whose compensation is based in part on the size of their tonsorial creations?  It turns out that, like the title of Crossword 144, it’s just another dubious financial practice.  So it sounds more fun than it is—like so many things in life. But not like this puzzle!

Download this week’s crossword:

263-Teaser-Rates.puz

263-Teaser-Rates.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

263 Teaser Rates

A crossword of mine appears Thursday, December 8, in the Los Angeles Times.

Novel 262: Edward Dutton Cook, Over Head and Ears (1868)

 

Helen Allingham, At the Cottage Door

 

A wealthy solicitor’s son is secretly engaged to be married.

Here is another clever and lively novel by Cook, for whom see Novels 040, 111, and 166.

“Much of the painting it contains is not inferior to Mr. Trollope’s. . . . The novel has scarcely any poor work in it, and no bad, trashy work.” Spectator, October 3, 1868

“Mr. Cook has done a new and somewhat daring thing” in his plot, and “has, moreover, achieved this new and somewhat daring thing in a style and with a completeness of success that . . . put him amongst our best living novelists.  This high praise is given . . . after cool reconsideration of the numerous merits of the story;  its skilful construction, uniform freshness and sprightliness of diction, wholesomeness of interest, and . . . the unconstrained humour of its somewhat superficial but thoroughly truthful delineations of character.” Athenaeum, October 10, 1868

A contrasting view:

“Mr. Cook stands just outside the circle of penny romanticists—one half-penny beyond them, so to speak. . .  It would be difficult to imagine a slighter story, yet Mr. Cook spins and spins with a hundred-spider power, and clothes the poor bit of plot in three volumes. . . . The thing is a literary cobweb. . .  one of the most vicious specimens of the porous, no-thinking, windy school of novelists that we have seen for many a day.   A course of such reading would in a few years materially increase the amount of national imbecility.” London Review, October 21, 1868

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000005B16A

v.2 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000059BCE

v.3 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_0000000369A8

Novel 261: Charlotte Yonge, Hopes and Fears (1860)

 

James Sant, Mary Fothergill and her children Richard and Mary

 

A woman devotes her life to a former lover’s orphan children.

Here is another novel by Yonge (see Novels 003, 053, 103, 155, 210) who, in the matter of character delineation, is, I will recklessly assert, the greatest of all novelists ever.

“Miss Yonge has . . . been remarkably successful in sustaining to the end the interest of the story, and we do not often meet with a novel in which it is less easy to predict beforehand what will become of each of the principal characters.” Literary Gazette, November 3, 1860

“The union of a chivalrous sense of honor with a keen perception of the ludicrous, and of dainty literary tastes with strictly High-Church principles, and the fondness alike for practical duties and errant fancies, seem as essential to the character of the author of ‘Hopes and Fears’ as to that of the heroine. Novel readers . . . will find the story full . . . of the same quiet humour and the same high moral principles” as all Yonge’s novels. North American Review, April, 1861

A constrasting view:

“Without the help of a genealogical tree, we are completely at a loss to understand the plot of the story, for we are carried through no less than four generations of one family, and are favoured with the history of all their relations, connexions and friends. Moreover . . . nearly every person mentioned in the book is known by a very unfair number of nicknames, which only makes confusion worse confounded. . . . The moral of the story seems to prove (whether intentionally or not we cannot say) that if children are duly instructed in religious principles, and receive a careful education they will probably turn out good-for-nothing, worthless characters; but if sufficiently neglected . . . there is every hope that they may ultimately become praiseworthy and valuable members of society, even, perhaps, zealous, hard-working High-Church clergymen.” Athenaeum, November 3, 1860

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/hopesfearsorscen01yong

v.2 https://archive.org/details/hopesfearsorscen02yong

Crossword 260: Double Duties

 

Edmund Blair Leighton, Duty

 

Duty is an important value with us here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Weekly Victorian Novel Recommender, as it was with the Victorians themselves; so this week’s puzzle, which concludes the website’s fifth year, is a cruciverbal Ode to Duty, just like Wordsworth’s, except that it’s a puzzle made up of crossed words rather than a poem..

Are you feeling a dutiful inclination to help support this website?  Now’s your chance!  As at other years’ ends, along with giving you absolutely free two 21 x 21 puzzles (this week and next week), we are offering bonus puzzles to those who donate.  You may click on the button below, or donate through PayPal or Venmo using the site’s email address.  There are four donation levels.  Donate $12 and receive a 15 x 15 crossword which employs only words current during the Victorian era (and, of course, still current today).  Donate $13.50 and receive a large, themed 21 x 21 crossword.  Donate $15 and receive both. 

And again, for a donation of $10,000,000.00 the site will be renamed in your honor. So if your name is, say, Melon Usk, it will henceforth be known as Melon Usk Presents David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Weekly Victorian Novel Recommender.  Why do this?  Well, say you’re a little remorseful about spending 44 billion dollars on a social media platform that’s good for little but abusing one’s enemies and congratulating oneself—wouldn’t you feel much better about things if, for a tiny fraction of the price, you purchased in addition the right to present the world’s premier source of crossword puzzles and Victorian novel recommendations?

Download this week’s crosswords:

260-Double-Duties.puz

260-Double-Duties.pdf

260-Double-Duties (2 pages).pdf

Solve this week’s crosswords online:

260 Double Duties

Donate


A crossword of mine appears today in the Wall Street Journal; another appears Friday, November 18, in the Los Angeles Times.