Novel 289: Hamilton Aïdé, In That State of Life (1871)

 

John Callcott Horsley, The Waiting Maid

 

A baronet’s stepdaughter runs away to be a lady’s maid.

For Aïdé, see Novels 076, 176, and 236.

“Mr. Aïdé’s forte lies in character.  Among all . . . there is not one which is exaggerated on the one hand or indistinct on the other”; the novel shows his “knowledge of the world, and his sympathy with the more hidden qualities and feelings of human nature. . . . When, united with this delicate observation and this power of drawing character, there is a clear and incisive style, we have much for which to be grateful in these days of false psychology and questionable grammar.” Saturday Review, April 22, 1871

“An admirable little miniature painting, with no dreary padding; one of the most taking little stories we have read for many months past.” Spectator, May 6, 1871

A contrasting view:

“It indicates no great fertility of imagination, nor any remarkable insight into character.  If it has few merits, its demerits are also trifling.” Athenaeum, April 15, 1871

Download this fortnight’s novel:

https://archive.org/details/inthatstatelife00adgoog

Novel 288: Anonymous, Married Women (1855)

 

James Jacques Joseph Tissot, Quarreling

 

A virtuous young lady’s cousin breaks their engagement to marry an adventuress.

This is the second of this anonymous author’s novels (the first, Broomhill, had appeared three years earlier).  Despite some period clichés (e.g., the ideal clergyman who, after final exhortations to his family, expires with a heaven-witnessing smile), it represents some delightfully bad marriages.

“With greater powers of writing and more knowledge of life than usually belongs to the circulating library novel, Married Women is essentially of that class. . . .  The scenes, though not wanting in power or spirit, possess that faded air which characterizes general imitation.  But there is the main thing in a novel—a well-varied story, told with sufficient rapidity, relieved by secondary fortunes without complex involution, and if not reminding one of the actual yet rarely outraging probability.  It is a book for the reader rather than the critic; though better adapted to the main end of writing, that of pleasing the class of readers for whom it is designed, than some fictions of a more vaulting ambition.” Spectator, March 10 1855

“We have read this novel ourselves with much pleasure, and we have no doubt that many others will do the same.  If rigidly criticized, the story will be found straggling:—it concerns too many people, who are all independent of each other, and do not work together to produce unity of result.  But, notwithstanding this, the book is extremely interesting, and, what is more, the tendency is healthy and unexceptionable.  The characters are well and firmly drawn. . . .  Some of the scenes evince quiet power and force of delineation, without ambitious straining after effect.” Athenaeum, March 17, 1855

A contrasting view:

“Milk-and-water triviality. . . .  We suppose there is still a public for novels like this among the clients of circulating libraries in provincial towns; and, after all, an interest in such feeble creations is better than blank ennui or indulgence in acrid gossip.” Westminster Review, July 1855

Download this fortnight’s novel:

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990146724840107026
(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)

Novel 286: Margaret Paul, Gentle and Simple (1878)

 

Henry Yeend King, At the Farm Gate

 

A virtuous young lady, neglected by her uncle, is taken up by an aristocratic cousin and a farmer grandfather.

For Paul, see Novels 025, 136, 198, and 251.

“A good story, and of a kind that demands a hearty welcome. . . .  It is admirably written, in a style that combines ease and carefulness, and it is as refined and elevated as it is clever.” Spectator, April 13, 1878

“There is much skill in Mrs. Paul’s method of bringing together the different threads of her narrative and keeping her reader’s attention upon a plot which has enough and not too much ramification, while it contains no incident which does not bear upon the progress of the story.” Examiner, May 18, 1878

“This cannot be called a powerful novel, but it is a good one:  thoughtful, well-written, and marked by a reticence, here and there, which speaks volumes for the culture and fine feeling of the author.” Contemporary Review, September, 1878

Download this fortnight’s novel:

v.1 https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000036480#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1030%2C-115%2C3397%2C2297

v.2 https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000059DF6#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1029%2C-115%2C3389%2C2292

Crossword 284: Meal Preparation

 

Solomon Joseph Solomon, The Breakfast Table

 

Meal preparation!  Here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender, not only do we dress for dinner in correct evening attire, we also take care at every meal to provide ourselves only with nutritionally balanced dishes hand-crafted from organic ingredients gathered laboriously from our own fields.  All this takes so much time that we barely have any left in which to chew and swallow the stuff, much less to read novels and make crosswords.  So in this fortnight’s puzzle we’re combining our labors.

Download this fortnight’s crossword:

284-Meal-Preparation.puz

284-Meal-Preparation.pdf

Solve this fortnight’s crossword online:

284 Meal Preparation

A crossword of mine will appear next Tuesday, August 29, in The Wall Street Journal.