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  • Jane Austen, Persuasion and Lyme Regis

    The Austen family visited Lyme Regis in the Autumn of 1803 and again in the summer of 1804.  At the time of their visit, Lyme Regis was fast becoming a popular destination for middle class Georgians to enjoy the healing properties of bathing and the sea air.

    Historian Lucy Worsley in her research for her work Jane Austen at Home managed to track down where the Austens stayed for part of their summer sojourn, and identifies it as Pyne House in Broad Street.  The house, now divided into holiday flats, still exists and Lucy Worsley stayed there during the course of her research.  Although it seems that Jane Austen did not return to Lyme Regis after 1804, her time there clearly made a firm impression on her as she later used the setting in her final completed novel, Persuasion.

    Characters are rarely static in Austen’s work, frequently moving between locations, and Persuasion is no exception.  Anne Elliot, the heroine of the text, moves between three significant settings.  The novel begins in rural Somersetshire.  There is an interlude in Lyme Regis.  The novel then concludes in Bath.  It is the section in Lyme Regis which interests me, although my use of the term ‘interlude’ may not be the most accurate word.  Whilst constituting a relatively small portion of the novel, it is this section which proves transformative for Anne, in part through the symbolic nature of the landscape.  However, before we arrive at Lyme Regis it may be useful to establish a little bit of context.

    The novel tells the story of twenty-seven year old Anne Elliot, rather an elderly spinster by Regency standards, who, we are frequently told, is now losing her bloom.  We encounter Anne some eight years after her broken engagement to Frederick Wentworth, who was a Lieutenant of limited financial means.  The broken engagement has occurred before the beginning of the novel and the reader has to piece together the details as the novel unfolds.  Anne was persuaded to end the engagement through family pressure due to concerns about Wentworth’s lower status.  During the eight years which have passed, no potential suitors have generated the same depth of feeling and thus Anne may well be facing life as an old maid.  To compound matters further, the Elliots have seen a decline in their fortunes due to reckless money management by Anne’s father.  They have no choice but to rent out the family home of Kellynch Hall.  Thus, the widowed Sir Walter and Anne’s older and unmarried sister Elizabeth set up residence in Bath.  Meanwhile, Anne goes to live with her younger married sister Mary at Upper Cross.  Kellynch Hall is rented out to Admiral Croft following his return from the Napoleonic Wars.  His wife just happens to be the sister of Frederick Wentworth (he of the broken engagement) thus making way for his return into Anne’s life.  Whilst the Elliot fortunes have declined, Wentworth is now a wealthy Captain.  He remains angry and bitter over the end of the relationship, and any reconciliation seems unlikely, making the usual Austen happy ending doubtful.

    On the surface, Anne Elliot appears a more reserved and introverted Austen heroine but her development is connected to the locations in which she finds herself.  Just under half way through the novel a visit to Lyme Regis is proposed and thus Anne finds herself joining a party consisting of her sister Mary and husband Charles, and his sisters Henrietta and Louisa.  Captain Wentworth is also part of the group and seems to be engaging in some mild flirtation with Louisa.

    Passing time is a recurrent theme in the novel, not least due to the frequent references to Anne’s fading youth.  The sense of lateness is continued during the visit to Lyme Regis.  It is November, and so the holiday season is over: ‘…the rooms were shut up, the lodgers almost all gone, scarcely any family but of the residents left.’ It being November, the daylight is fast fading and the narrator tells us ‘… it was very evident they would not have more time for looking about them, before the light and warmth of the day were gone.’ (Chapter Eleven). This somewhat melancholy feel is extended through Anne’s sense of regret at what might have been regarding Captain Wentworth, and Lyme Regis becomes a place for reflection.  However, the location quickly works its magic as Anne begins to enjoy herself and becomes more confident as she begins to appreciate her own intelligence.  The following morning, she partakes of a ‘stroll down to the sea before breakfast’ (Chapter Eleven) in the company of Henrietta.  The narrator describes how Anne glories in the delight of the sea breeze.  Later that morning Anne accompanies Captain Wentworth, Louisa and Henrietta on a trip to town.  It is on the way back that a significant event occurs in terms of Anne’s transformation.  As they are about to descend the steps leading down to the beach they encounter a gentleman who draws back to allow them to go first.  As they pass by, the gentleman looks at Anne:

    … with a degree of earnest admiration which she could not be insensible of.  She was looking remarkably well; her very regular, very pretty features, having the bloom and freshness of youth restored by the fine wind which had been blowing on her complexion, and by the animation of eye which it had also produced. (Chapter Twelve)

    This is the first instance of Anne’s appearance being described in favourable terms.  The moment becomes more significant though:

    It was evident that the gentleman (completely a gentleman in manner), admired her exceedingly.  Captain Wentworth looked round at her instantly in a way which showed his noticing of it.  He gave her a momentary glance – a glance of brightness, which seemed to say, ‘That man is struck with you – and even I, at this moment, see something like Anne Elliot again.  (Chapter Twelve)

    This is an important moment.  Not only has the vigour of the sea air restored Anne’s fading bloom, Captain Wentworth is witness to another man finding her attractive, which begins a shift in his own feelings.

    The next significant event concerns an accident at the Cobb.  This is a stone constructed breakwater and jetty, some of which dates back to medieval times.  It has proved to be an important structure over the years, preventing coastal erosion and securing a safe harbour for trade, and thus is of great economic importance for the town.  It has been extended and repaired many times over the centuries.  Earlier, the narrator has praised ‘its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town,’ a description which is still recognisable today.  Jane Austen’s fondness for Lyme Regis is evident through the way in which she creates a sense of the surrounding scenery.

    The rather boisterous Louisa has previously enjoyed being jumped down from stiles by Captain Wentworth as ‘the sensation was delightful to her.’  Whilst the other ladies are content to use the steps from the high part of the Cobb to the lower level, Louisa again wishes to be jumped down.  Wentworth is reluctant to do so, fearing the hardness of the pavement will be too jarring for her.  She refuses to listen, he reluctantly agrees, and all is well.  That is until she runs up the steps to be jumped down again.  This time she jumps too soon and he fails to catch her, ‘she fell on the pavement on the lower Cobb, and was taken up lifeless!’ (Chapter Twelve) Her face is described as ‘like death’.  Chaos ensues, her sister Henrietta faints and Wentworth is beside himself with guilt and despair.  It falls to Anne to take control, providing smelling salts, supporting the fainting sister, and insisting a surgeon is sent for.  As the drama continues, Anne remains a figure of calm and it becomes clear Wentworth defers to her authority and begins to appreciate, rather than resent, her presence.

    Lyme Regis functions as a place of transition.  In terms of structure, it occupies a small space in the narrative, just two chapters at the end of Volume I, providing an interlude between the rural Somersetshire chapters in Volume I and the Bath chapters in Volume II.  However, it provides a crucial turning point in the story of Anne Eliot.  She gains a newfound confidence regarding her intellectual strengths, and experiences moments of self-realisation regarding her own actions in the broken engagement to Wentworth.  Furthermore, her physical health is improved by the sea air and she regains some of her lost, all important, bloom.  The narrator describes it as an ideal place ‘for sitting in unwearied contemplation’.  Indeed, Austen’s love for the location clearly comes through as we are told ‘these places must be visited, and visited again, to make the worth of Lyme understood.’ (Chapter Eleven) As we leave Anne Elliot just half way through her story, you could now turn to Persuasion to see how her future unfolds.

    (Photos are author’s own)

  • The Classics Club Spin #45

    Here is my latest list for The Classics Club Spin:

    • 1. Louisa Alcott, Work: A Story of Experience
    • 2. Jane Austen, Emma
    • 3. Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Vixen
    • 4. Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
    • 5. Agatha Christie, N or M?         
    • 6. Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow
    • 7. George Eliot, Middlemarch
    • 8. Elizabeth Gaskell, Gothic Tales
    • 9. Anna Katherine Green, The Circular Study
    • 10. Frances Hodgeson Burnett, The Making of a Marchioness
    • 11. E.C.R. Lorac, Checkmate to Murder
    • 12. E.C.R. Lorac, Fell Murder
    • 13. Gladys Mitchell, Tom Brown’s Body
    • 14. L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars
    • 15. Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children
    • 16. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
    • 17. Bram Stoker, Dracula
    • 18. Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
    • 19. Patricia Wentworth, Latter End
    • 20. Patricia Wentworth, Ladies Bane

  • Henry Dunbar by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

    I have read a number of books by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and this one I enjoyed more than some of the others.  For a writer of sensation novels who produced more than eighty books, only one of her works seems to get most of the attention, and that is Lady Audley’s Secret.  It is indeed a fine text, and a prime example of everything which made the sensation novel such a success in the mid-Victorian period, but it is a pity most of her other works tend to be overlooked.

    Like many of her works, Henry Dunbar first appeared in serialized form under the title The Outcasts.  Installments in the London Journal began in September 1863 and concluded in March 1864. Braddon’s ‘husband’ and agent John Maxwell was unhappy with the sum offered by Tinsleys, publishers of her previous novels and as they refused to increase their fee, this became the first of Braddon’s novels to be published by Maxwell.  If you are wondering why the marital status is in inverted commas, this is because they were not actually married.  They were living together as husband and wife, but Maxwell’s actual wife was still alive and living in Ireland.  I have written about this in my previous blog post on ‘Eveline’s Visitant’

    The tale begins with the young Henry Dunbar and Joseph Wilmot employed in a London Banking House.  Dunbar manages to run up large gambling debts and convinces his friend Wilmot, who happens to have a talent for ‘copying’ handwriting, to create some forged bonds in order to pay off his debtors, claiming Wilmot will be rewarded.  However, the crime is discovered and Dunbar lays the blame squarely on the gullible Wilmot.  The owner of the bank, Dunbar’s uncle, banishes him to their Indian office and fires Wilmot.  Poor Joseph Wilmot is unable to find respectable work due to the scandal and falls into a life of crime, which ultimately results in him being transported to Tasmania.  He blames Dunbar for his misfortunes, as does his daughter Margaret.  Years pass and following his release, Wilmot and his daughter live under the assumed name of Wentworth.  Henry Dunbar returns from exile to inherit the family business and become a very wealthy man.  In true Braddon style, there is high drama and many twists and turns follow.

    However, there is more to this text than just the usual melodrama, evidence by some of the criticism it received on publication.  Jennifer Carnell, in her excellent work The Literary Lives of M.E. Braddon writes of how contemporary critics gave negative reviews and accused Braddon of glorifying criminals through her depictions of villains.  I agree with Carnell who disputes this, suggesting Braddon does not sympathise with crime, but instead seeks to explain it.  It is hopefully not too much of a spoiler, as this happens early in the novel, but Wilmot confronts Dunbar on his return to England, following which, Wilmot disappears.  This makes way for a move into the realms of detective fiction as Margaret strives to ascertain what has happened to her father.

    There are many qualities in Braddon’s writing, one of which is her ability to evoke a sense of place.  After the initial dramatic reunion between the two men, they appear to reconcile, although it is apparent to the reader that the reconciliation is false on both sides.  They dine at The Dolphin Hotel in Southampton, a place which still exists and has a long history as a famous coaching Inn.  They travel to Winchester where Wilmot is to be the guest of Dunbar at The George, another famous coaching Inn which has since been demolished.  Braddon writes of their sojourn:

    They walked under the shadow of a low stone colonnade, and then turned aside by the market-place, and made their way into the precincts of the cathedral.  There are quaint old courtyards, and shadowy quadrangles hereabouts; there are pleasant gardens, where the flowers seem to grow brighter in the sanctified shade than other flowers that flaunt in the unhallowed sunshine.  (Chapter 8)

    Not only does Braddon create a remarkable sense of place here, but I also cannot help but think she is making a symbolic point through her description of the flowers.

    Real places continue to be evoked as the narrator refers to the two men strolling from the cathedral towards St Cross and the Water Meadows.  They are due to dine together later, but Joseph Wilmot has disappeared, and his body is later discovered.

    There are several detectives seeking the truth in this novel, both official and unofficial, and the dialogue Braddon creates during the Inquest reads like an early precursor to the genre of the courtroom drama.  Scotland Yard become involved through the character of detective Mr Carter.  Arthur Lovell, a young lawyer also joins the investigation and his pursuits are described in detail, but it is Margaret who is relentless in her search for the truth.  Wilkie Collins, a contemporary of Braddon is much more well known and is often referred to as the father of the British detective novel through his work The Moonstone (1868).  With Henry Dunbar appearing four years earlier, maybe Braddon could be thought of as the mother of the detective novel.

  • Edith Wharton in England

    Edith Wharton rarely returned to America after making France her home in 1907, and for a while, she considered settling in England.  According to Hermione Lee, from 1908 she spent several weeks a year in England on an almost annual basis.  For a time, she pursued the idea of buying a house by the name of Coopersale in Epping, but eventually decided against the idea due to the dilapidated state of the house and grounds, much to the disappointment of writer friend Henry James.  Nevertheless, she was a frequent visitor, along with other prominent writers including H.G. Wells and Rudyard Kipling to Lamb House, which Henry James had made his home.

    During her visits to England, Edith Wharton became a familiar presence at many stately homes.  She was introduced to the residents of some of these by Henry James, others she came to through her own acquaintances,such as the Cliveden estate, home of the Astors.  She made her first visit in 1908, and on a return visit in 1912 she introduced Henry James.  Like the Astors and Cliveden, many of these estates had connections with Wharton’s homeland.

    One of the houses, or rather the gardens, which most captivated Wharton was Hidcote Manor, close to Chipping Camden in the Cotswolds.  Edith Wharton maintained a keen interest in house and garden design and wrote about these subjects in addition to her many novels.  As early as 1897 she wrote The Decoration of Houses and in 1904 Italian Villas and their Gardens.

    Wharton became firm friends with Major Lawrence Johnston, owner of Hidcote Manor.  Johnston was also American and became a renowned horticulturalist through his dedicated garden design at Hidcote, beginning in 1907.  Both were Americans making their homes in other countries, and their friendship flourished due to their shared love of gardens.  Following her first visit in 1925, she became a regular guest and particularly admired Johnstone’s Arts and Crafts style gardens.  Inspired by Gertrude Jekyll, Johnstone designed a series of interconnected gardens or ‘external rooms’ sometimes using distinct colour themes.  Wharton herself adopted a similar style at her French home Pavillon Colombe where a narrow path connected outdoor spaces separated by hedges.

    Despite Wharton’s love of England, not many of her works were set here.  Some of her ghost stories made use of an English setting.  Biographer Hermione Lee states Wharton thought of England as a “great rich garden” with old English houses providing a perfect setting for ghost stories.  One such example is her 1910 story ‘Afterward’, a chilling tale set in a country house by the name of Stocks in Dorsetshire.

    It is interesting Wharton returned to England for the setting of her final and uncompleted novel The Buccaneers.  This was published in 1938, a year after her death, although the novel is set during the 1870s.  The first idea for the novel came to her whilst visiting Tintagel, Cornwall in the summer of 1928.  The plot of the novel takes a topic which also interested Henry James, namely the infiltration of American heiresses into the English aristocracy.  With English country estates beginning to fall into disrepair, wealthy American young women seeking marriage provided a useful solution.  Both sides benefitted with aspiring young Americans gaining a title, and declining country estates receiving a much needed injection of money.

    In addition to the Cornish coast, The Buccaneers also makes use of the Cotswolds as a setting.  Shy heroine Nan St George finds herself in sympathy with the aristocratic Guy Thwaite, through their love of old houses.  This becomes apparent during her visit to his ancestral home Honourslove, which according to Hermione Lee, is based on Stanway, another of Wharton’s favourite places to visit during the 1930s.  We are told the “terrace of Honourslove had never looked more beautiful than on the following Sunday afternoon” and Nan is enamoured with the lavender borders.  She reflects on how “the bricks of the walls, the very flags of the terrace were so full of captured sunshine that in the darkest days they must keep an inner brightness” (Chapter 11).  I cannot help wondering whether Edith Wharton may also have been thinking of Hidcote. 

  • The Classics Club Spin #44

    This will be my first time taking part in the Classics Club Spin. What is this? Well, you create a list which includes 20 titles from your main Classics Club Challenge list. On Sunday 17th May they will post a number from 1 to 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number by 5th July 2026. This is my list:

    • 1. Jane Austen, Persuasion
    • 2. Dorothy Bowers, Fear for Miss Betony
    • 3. Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Henry Dunbar
    • 4. Christianna Brand, Green for Danger
    • 5. L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars
    • 6. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Making of a Marchioness
    • 7. Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
    • 8. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow
    • 9. John Galsworth, The Man of Property
    • 10. Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth
    • 11. Anna Katherine Green, The Circular Study
    • 12. Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
    • 13. E.C.R. Lorac, Fell Murder
    • 14. Gladys Mitchell, Laurels are Poison
    • 15. Edith Nesbit, The Lark
    • 16. May Sinclair, Mary Olivier: A Life
    • 17. Josephine Tey, The Francise Affair
    • 18. Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
    • 19. Patricia Wentworth, Ladies Bane
    • 10. Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring

  • Agatha Christie, Dead Man’s Folly and Greenway House

    Many of the country house settings found in classic crime fiction are now the kind of stately homes you might find on a visit to a National Trust property.  The connection between the two becomes ever stronger regarding the novel Dead Man’s Folly and Greenway House in Devon.  Both form part of the extensive heritage left by one of the most famous crime writers, Agatha Christie.

    Dead Man’s Folly, published in 1956, began life as a shorter text, ‘The Greenshore Folly’.  Agatha Christie wrote it in 1954 with the intention of donating the rights to Churston Fetters Church to raise money for new stained glass windows.  However, the story was difficult to sell as it was too long for a short story but not long enough for a novel.  Never one for waste, Christie turned part of the text into a short story, ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’, featuring Miss Marple, which she gave to the church.  She then produced a longer work which we now know as the Hercule Poirot novel Dead Man’s Folly.  The ‘Greenshaw’ of the earlier incarnation may have provided a clue regarding the setting as she drew inspiration from her beloved holiday home Greenway House in Devon.  Names were changed though.  The river Dart became the river Hel, and Greenway House became Nasse House.   Christie had drawn upon her Devon home in other novels – Five Little Pigs, Ordeal by Innocence and Towards Zero.  However, it is in Dead Man’s Folly that the house and grounds are most clearly evoked.

    Agatha Christie bought Greenway House in 1938 during what she described as her ‘plutocratic period.’  It was advertised in Country Life where it was described as “suitable for a first class hotel.”  Lucy Worsley, in her biography Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman, highlights how remarkable such a purchase was, as at this point in time most large country houses were being sold off, and not being bought as private residences.  This is reflected in Dead Man’s Folly where the former lady of the manor Mrs Folliat, who now lives in the lodge by the front gate declares:

    Nice to have Nasse lived in again.  We were all so afraid it was going to be a hotel… One drives through the country and passes place after place with the board up “Guest House” or “Private Hotel”… All the houses one stayed in as a girl – or where one went to dances.  Very sad.  (Chapter 5, p.62)

    Christie’s initial enjoyment of Greenway was short lived as when the Second World War began the house was commandeered by the Admiralty and not returned to her until February 1945.  Her love for the house is clear from her own autobiographical writings, as well as the way it is evoked in her previously mentioned works of fiction.

    Dead Man’s Folly begins with Hercule Poirot receiving a call for help from his good friend the famous crime writer, Ariadne Oliver.  Mrs Oliver is staying at Nasse House in Devon, which is the home of Sir George and Lady Stubbs.  She has been tasked with devising a Murder Hunt for their garden fete, but her intuition leads her to tell her old friend “But I think there’s something wrong.” (Chapter 1, p.11) There is a form of doubling occurring in the text as the grounds of Nasse House is the setting for a murder mystery style treasure hunt, and subsequently becomes the scene of an actual murder.  Ariadne Oliver is indeed right, her plans are being manipulated.

    I am not sure if it is because I am familiar with Greenway following my visit, and thus have firm images in mind, or whether Christie’s love of the house is coming through, but this text feels particularly evocative regarding location and sense of place.  This begins with Hercule Poirot’s chauffeur driven arrival:

    They went on, down a steep hill through woods, then through big iron gates, and along a drive, winding up finally in front of a big white Georgian house looking out over the river.  (Chapter 1, p.8)

    The grounds with its many interesting features and self-contained areas provides the perfect setting for a treasure hunt style murder mystery, as seen by Poirot’s attempts at navigating his way through the clues:

    … Poirot went off murmuring to himself like an incantation: Tennis Court, Camelia Garden, The Folly, Upper Nursery Garden, Boathouse…

    The event of the Summer Fete helps in providing the usual cast of suspects required in any classic murder mystery as Sir George and Lady Stubbs have a number of guests staying with them.  In addition, the house next door has been converted into a Youth Hostel providing a few additional suspects in the guise of trespassers.  Added to the mix, as well as a murder, there is a disappearance and an unexpected arrival of a long lost relative.  Thus, there is plenty to keep the reader engaged, and some quality Christie plotting.

    At this point, it is worth returning to Ariadne Oliver, a character who appears in several Christie novels and who the author admits is partly based on herself.  Christie has been known to use this character in particular ways, sometimes to make comment on the process of writing.  Indeed, she is already tired of her detective character Sven and regrets making him Finnish as she has never been to Finland and knows nothing about the country.  There are echoes here of Christie’s creation of the Belgian Poirot!  When attempting to explain the plot of her treasure hunt the brilliant Poirot blinks “in mute incomprehension.” (Chapter 4, p.38).  She bemoans the need to explain her story as she prefers to write things down as verbally explaining her plots always ends in “the most frightful muddle.” (p.40) Poirot says nothing but privately reflects the “whole plot and action of the Murder Hunt seemed to be wrapped in impenetrable fog.” (p.41) Fortunately Christie’s plot, whilst requiring careful attention, is somewhat clearer.

    It is interesting though, that a novel set in her home, also contains some further personal reflections.  Ariadne Oliver is used to such effect during the treasure hunt where she encounters a competitor:

    ‘They say Mrs Ariadne Oliver is down here herself somewhere about. I’d like to get her autograph. You haven’t seen her about, have you?

    ‘No’, said Mrs Oliver firmly.

    ‘I’d like to meet her. Good yarns she writes.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But they say she drinks like a fish.’

    He hurried off and Mrs Olive said indignantly: ‘Really! That’s most unfair when I only like lemonade.’  (Chapter 6, p.77)

    This is based on an exchange Christie overheard between two women, whilst keeping her identity secret.  They praised her writing but commented they had heard she drinks like a fish.  Rather than being offended, she was mildly amused.  Agatha Christie was T-total, and her drink of choice was cream.

    Whilst she may have slightly altered the above anecdote, much of the detail related to the house and grounds remain, as does the history of the house as told by Mrs Folliat.  Even Poirot’s bedroom has a basis in reality as he is led up “the staircase and along a passage to a big airy room looking out over the river.” (p.42) The bathroom opposite reflects the geography of the interior.  Beyond the house there is the Gate Lodge, Ferry Cottage, the Tennis Court, the Battery (where he encounters Mrs Oliver on his arrival) and the Boathouse.  The latter is carefully described:

    A short steep slope led down to the door of the boathouse which was built out over the river, with a little wharf and a storage place for boats underneath.  (Chapter 6, p.79)

    This location is particularly significant as it is the scene of the murder in Mrs Oliver’s plot and, as you might have guessed, becomes the scene of the real crime.  The beauty of the backdrop provides an apposite contrast for brutality of the events.  Even Poirot, who is not fond of “nature in the wild” finding it too untidy and unruly found the “beauty of Nasse House appealed to him in spite of himself.” (Chapter 16, p.194)  The ITV 2012 adaptation of Dead Man’s Folly starring David Suchet was actually filmed at Greenway.  It seems even more fitting that this was the final episode of Poirot to be filmed at such a significant location.

  • Louisa Alcott and the American Civil War

    This is the second half of the lecture began in an earlier post. In this post I focus on Louisa Alcott’s time working as a nurse during the Civil War and some of her later writings inspired by her experiences.

    In some ways, the Civil War functioned as a liberating experience for Louisa.  By this point in her life, she had endured some difficult years.  She had lived through the death of one sister and the marriage of another.  Her hopes for education and independence were unrealised, partly due to the conventions of 19th Century life for women and partly due to years of family poverty.

    Her family were politically active as strong supporters of the Abolitionist movement and at one point, they harboured a fugitive slave.  Although she often thought of herself as ‘the family’s son’ she remained frustrated that her gender limited her ability to be involved in political activism.  On the outbreak of war, her journal entry read:

    I’ve often longed to see a war, now I have my wish.  (12 April 1861)

    By November 1862, she was almost thirty years old, and her diary revealed the formation of her plans:

    Decided to go to Washington as a nurse if I could find a place.  I love nursing and must let out my pent up energy in some way.  I set forth… feeling as if I was the sone of the house going to war.

    Nursing offered a respectable way for women to become involved in the war effort.  A lady by the name of Dorothea Dix, the superintendent of Union Army Nurses issued a call for volunteers stating they should be married and “past 30 years of age, healthy, plain almost to repulsion in dress and devoid of personal attractions.”  The rule regarding marriage was relaxed following an influx of casualties from the Battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1862.

    On 11 December 1862 Louisa received her orders to leave the following day for Washington Union Hospital, Georgetown.  The journey was an arduous one of 500 miles and included a train to New London, Connecticut, a steamship from Boston to New Jersey, and finally a train to Washington DC.  She wrote of passing the brightly lit White House and the unfinished dome of the Capitol Building.

    The Union Hospital was a hastily converted hotel.  Her journals reveal it was badly lit, crowded and poorly ventilated as some of the windows were nailed shut.  Others has smashed panes covered by curtains to keep out drafts. On arrival, she was put in charge of forty soldiers who were suffering from rheumatic fever.  After only three days, there was a influx of wounded soldiers from Fredricksburg.  She was give block of brown soap and a washbasin and told to wash them as fast as she could, which she proceeded to do for the next twelve hours.  By the next day, she was required to assist with amputations.  As you can see, there was no training to ease nurses into their duties.

    One of her responsibilities was to assign patients to the appropriate areas in the three room ward.  This was organised as:

    • Duty room – recently wounded soldiers
    • Pleasure room – recovering soldiers
    • Pathetic room – soldiers with little or no chance of recovery.

    Christmas and New Year came and went, and her diary entry for 1 January 1863 reveals she was rising to the challenge:

    Five hundred miles from home, alone among strangers, doing painful duties all day long, and leading a life of constant excitement in this great house surrounded by 3 or 4 hundred men in all stages of suffering, disease and death.  Though often homesick, heartsick and worn out, I like it.

    However, her career as a nurse was not destined to be a long one.  After weeks of nonstop work, poor food, stale air and exposure to infection, she ended up with typhoid pneumonia.  She tried to ignore her symptoms until one of the doctors ordered bed rest.  Her diary entry reveals her suffering and a sense of fear:

    Sharp pain in the side, cough, fever and dizziness.  A pleasant prospect for a lonely soul five hundred miles from home… Dream awfully, and awake unrefreshed, think of home and wonder if I am to die here as Mrs Ropes is likely to do.

    Mrs Ropes was the matron of the hospital and had also contracted typhoid pneumonia.  She was concerned about Louisa’s worsening state and had written to Bronson advising him to collect his daughter.  On 20th January, Mrs Ropes died and Louisa agreed to return home.  She had only served six weeks of her three month placement. The illness was lengthy.  Following the journey home with her father it was eight weeks before she was able to sit up in bed.  She had been feverish and suffering delusions for three weeks.  Her hair was cut short, something which was common practice as an attempt to combat illness in the Nineteenth Century.  She was finally able to leave her room in the spring, and wrote in her journal “I was never ill before this time, and never well afterward.”  This refers to ongoing bouts of ill health which she began to experience a few years later.  She had been given Calomel, a mercury compound, which was a popular remedy for many illnesses.  For many years it was thought her health condition resulted from mercury poisoning, however, recent thinking disputes this and the theory now, is she may have developed Lupus.

    Her letters home and journal entries were the inspiration behind what would become the novella Hospital Sketches.  The material was first published as a series of letters in two instalments in The Boston Commonwealth, a known anti-slavery paper.  The first instalment came out in May 1863, with the second instalment being eagerly awaited.  The reading public were eager for knowledge of the war and little was known about life in the hospitals.  In October it was published in book form under the title Hospital Sketches and Camp Fireside Stories and included eight additional short stories. The character starts out as “Topsy Turvy Trib” and is deliberately mocking of her own self importance and dedication.  Alcott added a postscript to the novel defending:

    the tone and levity in some portions of the sketches… It is a part of my religion to look well after the cheerfulness of life, and let the dismals shift for themselves.

    The novel begins with Trib wanting to do something productive with her life but observing the only options open to her were matrimony, teaching, writing, acting or nursing.  Of these, the least reputable would have been to become an actress.  Employment was clearly an issue which concerned Alcott, and were explored again in a later novel entitled Work: A Story of Experience (1873).

    Hospital Sketches begins prior to Trib’s journey to the hospital, which is re-named “Hurly-burly House”.  Alcott’s frustrations at the bureaucracy she encountered form part of the early stages of Trib’s journey.  Once in post, she is immediately put to work:

    … with pneumonia on one side, diptheria on the other, five typhoids on the opposite, and a dozen dilapidated patriots, hopping, lying, and lounging about.

    With each passing day, Trib becomes more deeply drawn into the effects of the war and moves from the persona of comic spinster to serious witness.  The reader follows Trib’s movement from innocence to maturity.  She becomes disillusioned by her experiences and shocked at the differences between the fabled and real war.  The pithy tone of Alcott’s writing makes clear her outrage at examples of mis-management of the hospital, including the nailing shut of the windows.  She describes the callous and indifferent attitudes of the surgeons, contrasted against the matron who would happily give up her food rations for the patients.  She also criticises the hospital chaplain for the lack of comfort offered to dying men.

    The novella is a curious text in that it blends the horrors of hospital life with a light hearted tone as we follow the exploits of protagonist Tribulation Periwinkle.  When I taught this book a few years ago, my students observed the writing style felt quite modern.  Indeed, the colloquial tone of the book serves to mediate some the unpleasant detail of the hospital ward.  She was paid $200 for Hospital Sketches, and it was this publication which set her on the road to becoming taken seriously as Louisa Alcott, the writer.

  • Ethan Frome, or ‘Sous la Neige’

    The Valley of Decision, Edith Wharton’s first published novel in 1902 was set in Eighteenth Century Italy.  At the start of their lifelong friendship, Henry James offered Wharton some constructive criticism after reading this novel, namely she would be better advised to write about what she knew.  Wharton took on board his advice as her next novel, The House of Mirth (1905) presented the trials and tribulations of Lily Bart as she attempts to navigate her way through the upper echelons of New York high society, a world which Wharton knew well.  However, in her 1911 novella Ethan Frome, Wharton takes a different direction again.  Gone are the lavish parties with women in elegant gowns posing in decorous drawing rooms.  In Ethan Frome, the high life of New York is swapped for a lonely snowbound village in western Massachusetts and the harsh living conditions experienced by so-called ordinary folk in the previous century.  I say ‘so-called’ because her novella received a certain amount of criticism for its depiction of working class characters.  Nevertheless, Ethan Frome was greatly admired by Henry James.  Wharton had also set her earlier novel The Fruit of the Tree (1907) in western Massachusetts and would return to the region again in her later novella Summer (1917).

    In an introduction written for the 1922 edition of Ethan Frome Wharton explained she wanted to present something of the ‘harsh and beautiful land’ she had experienced whilst living in the area.  She was implicitly critical of other regional writers such as Sarah Orne Jewett as she felt they idealised the locale, whereas she wanted to create a harsher feeling of ‘the outcropping granite’ of the country.  There is indeed nothing soft and fern-like in her tale of poor Ethan.

    Wharton uses a narrator to frame the story of Ethan whom he meets when he visits the town of Starkfield (note the appropriate name).  As the snow moves in, the unnamed narrator becomes trapped in the isolated small town and this is when Ethan’s story begins to unfold.  The narrator commences by telling the reader:

    I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. (Prologue)

    The narrator takes shelter in Ethan’s home.  On first meeting Ethan he is struck by his appearance as he was ‘the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man.’ (Prologue).  He looks like an old man and walks with a limp although he was only fifty-two. This was due to an accident some twenty-four years previous. 

    The introductory section functions as a frame narrative, a device often used in gothic stories.  Whilst this is not an overtly gothic tale, it certainly borrows some elements from this genre.  An air of mystery is created surrounding the history of Mr Frome by circling around the story a number of times and using repeated phrases such as ‘most of the smart ones get away.’  Just what has made him a ‘ruin of a man’?  Starkfield is a fictional town, and indeed the carefully chosen name adds to the gothic feel of the location.

    The reader is moved from the Prologue into the main body of the text and this is where the story begins to unfold.  The basic story is relatively straightforward.  A young Ethan Frome inherits the family farm from his father, a farm which was already failing and which takes all of his efforts to sustain.  When his mother becomes ill his cousin Zenobia is sent to help care for her.  On his mother’s death, Ethan’s prospects are bleak and he marries Zenobia (known as Zeena) to stave off the loneliness of winter.  He reflects had it been summer he may not have been so inclined to marry.  From the outset it is not a happy union as Zeena begins to experience one illness after another and becomes completely fixated on what she perceives as her failing health.  Thus, Ethan has replaced a querulous complaining mother for a wife with similar qualities.  Eventually, Zeena’s orphaned cousin Mattie Silver comes to live with them to help out with domestic duties.  She is young, pretty and cheerful and poor Ethan falls in love with her.

    On the surface this is a simple tale, however, it is packed full with psychological intensity.  Wharton biographer Hermione Lee suggests the novella ‘comes as a great shock’ after some of her other novels, not just because of her change of class focus but because of its silence and control.[i]  Although Wharton may more often be associated with her high society novels, she was actually a very diverse and prolific writer.  Her outpourings also included ghost stories, travel literature, war writings, as well as a work on interior design.

    Every reference to Zeena works towards establishing her awful appearance, which soon becomes clear to the reader, is a reflection of her personality.  For example:

    She sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of snow made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened the three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous lines from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth.  Though she was but seven years her husband’s senior, and he was only twenty eight, she was already an old woman.  (Chapter Three)

    Zeena constantly complains of various aches and pains and frequently seeks cures from a variety of medications.  It was her so-called failing health which saw a double advantage in giving Mattie a home.  Although Zeena felt obligated to take in her homeless orphaned cousin, she would also provide a source of free labour, allowing Zeena to move further into her chosen role of invalid.

    The arrival of Mattie at the gloomy farmstead is like a breath of fresh air for Ethan.  Whereas the light reflected by the snow emphasized Zeena’s faults, the light from the lamp enhances Mattie’s features:

    … it drew out with some distinctness her slim young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child’s.  Then striking upward, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.  (Chapter Four)

    The tensions in the home soon begin to rise as the warmth of the attraction between Ethan and Mattie begins to grow.  Zeena becomes ever more critical of Mattie and it is clear the situation will come to a head at some point.  The drama of emotions is tightly controlled and Wharton admitted she was inspired by both The Blithedale Romance by Nathanial Hawthorne and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights with regards to the text’s emotional intensity.

    Much of the writing of Ethan Frome took place during the summer of 1910, a particularly challenging time in Wharton’s life.  Although she was enjoying success in her career, her personal life had become difficult.  Her husband Teddy had for sometime been suffering bouts of ill health and erratic behaviour.  He had previously lost a large sum of Edith’s money due to his uncontrolled actions and by the summer of 1910 he was residing in a clinic.  The doctors in Indiana diagnosed him as having ‘a psychosis’. To complicate matters, Edith was also embroiled in an affair with journalist and author William Morton Fullerton, an affair which was not destined to last.  Later the Wharton marriage would completely breakdown and following her divorce Edith settled permanently in France.

    Interestingly, the French translation of the Ethan Frome bore the title Sous la Neige (Under the Snow) which is actually rather appropriate, not just in terms of the weather, but in the emotions of the characters which seem destined to remain buried.  So, as the weather turns colder and the days grow shorter, why not immerse yourself in some of Wharton’s atmospheric writing.

    [i] Hermione Lee, Edith Wharton, London: Vintage Books, 2008, p.375

  • Pride and Prejudice

    In honour of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday last week, here is my piece on Pride and Prejudice.

    When I first read Pride and Prejudice as a moody fourteen year old, I was far from impressed. I had little interest in the characters, even less enthusiasm for the society in which they lived, and as for the preoccupation with marriage, well that just left me cold.  Some of you dear readers may gasp in horror at such notions.  However, my fourteen year old self was in good company, as Charlotte Brontë also thought Miss Austen was somewhat over-rated. In a letter to her friend, the literary critic G. H. Lewes she asked: ‘Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point.’ On the basis of Lewis’s praise she went ahead and read Pride and Prejudice and delivered her verdict:

    And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers – but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy – no open country – no fresh air – no blue hill – no bonny beck.  I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses. (Quoted in Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte, p.258)

    Ouch. In other words, Jane Austen’s style of writing is controlled, contained and ‘confined’, and one could even say, despite the sophistication of the society presented, it is a little common-place.  That is, if you agree with Miss Brontë.

    The next time I encountered Pride and Prejudice I was a mature undergraduate student and I was not all that enthused as finding this novel on my reading list.  However, after reading the first chapter I experienced a shift in my earlier opinions and was impressed by how much Austen achieves in the space of just a few pages.  Plus I immediately began to appreciate Austen’s humour.

    The opening sentence is one of the most well known beginnings to a novel in English literary history: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’  The narrative voice continues to explain that regardless of how much or little is known about said man, such ideas are so powerful ‘he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.’  We are then introduced to Mr and Mrs Bennet and from their ensuing dialogue on the subject of the newly arrived Mr Bingley into the neighbourhood their characters are firmly established.  Mr Bennet appears quick witted and seems to enjoy using his words to toy with his wife. His response to her laying claim on Mr Bingley as a potential husband for one of their daughters is the question ‘Is that his design in settling here?’ Her lack of insight is immediately apparent as she takes his question at face value whilst the reader recognizes his sarcasm.  As their exchange continues Mrs Bennet declares ‘… You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my nerves.’ Her husband’s witty retort once again is not absorbed by her and is again at her expense:

    ‘You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.’

    Thus, the first chapter establishes the social world of the novel, with its rules and traditions, it introduces some of the significant characters in a mildly humorous way, and in case the reader is in any doubt about Mrs Bennet, concludes by informing us ‘The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.’

    To read the rest of this article please follow the link to the Wordsworth blog by clicking here

  • Louisa Alcott’s Blood and Thunder Tales

    Some years ago I gave a lecture to a local literary society, which I then repeated for the WEA.  The subject was Louisa Alcott’s work outside of Little Women and we explored her love of writing gothic stories, as well as her experiences as a nurse during the American Civil War.  Below is the first half of the lecture which introduces her gothic writing, which she referred to as her ‘blood and thunder tales.’

    Let’s start with a well known beginning:

    “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

    “Its so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

    “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other” said Beth contentedly from her corner.

    You may well recognizable this as the beginning to Little Women, a novel which has not been out of print since its initial publication in 1868.  As well as being a memorable beginning, it is effective in establishing the character types of the four main players:

    • Jo as the focaliser, her personality already coming through as lying on the rug would not have been ladylike behavior in the 19th Century.
    • Meg, the eldest sister, often concerned with her appearance (and frequently frustrated by Jo’s)
    • Petulant Amy, the youngest of the four.
    • And the somewhat saintly and home-loving Beth.

    The Little Women series of novels is the work Louisa Alcott is most remembered for, yet Little Women is the novel she least wanted to write, declaring she didn’t know how to write for girls.  When Little Women was published in 1868, she was more well known for writing lurid gothic thrillers and as the author of Hospital Sketches, a fictionalized account of her experiences as a nurse in the American Civil War.

    Like the eponymous Jo March, Louisa was the second of four sisters, lived most of her life in poverty, and often worked to support her family.  The form of her employment varied from writing, to teaching, to sewing, to working as a companion to wealthier friends and relatives, from which she secured an expenses paid trip to Europe.  The family’s lack of financial stability resulted from the unconventional lifestyle of her parents Amos Bronson and Abba May Alcott.

    Her writing output was prolific – at least 270 works ranging from poetry to novels to essays.  These included 9 novels and 16 short story collections which would now be placed in the genre of young adult fiction; 4 adult novels – Moods (1864), Work (1873), A Modern Mephistopheles (1877), and Diana and Persis (1879).  In addition, she wrote lots of melodramatic gothic works under the gender neutral name A.M. Barnard.

    She called her thrillers her ‘Blood and Thunder tales’.  Themes such as secret family curses, murder, revenge, domineering men, manipulative women, drugs and incest featured in these tales.  These appeared in popular magazines, some were short stories, others were novellas, and most of them were written under her pseudonym A.M. Barnard.

    For many years these works were lost until they were discovered in the Harvard library by scholar Madeleine Stern and rare book collector Leona Rostenberg.  In 1943 on a research visit to the library they realised Louisa Alcott and A.M. Barnard were one and the same.  Their excitement was immense at having discovered these works.  They were not allowed to remove them from the library, instead they had to painstakingly copy all of these works by hand.  Although the discovery was made in 1943, it was not until the 1970s that some of these lost works were re-published.

    One of her longer thrillers – A Modern Mephistopheles, was published anonymously in 1877, after the success of Little Women.  This featured the character Jasper Helwyze who gives hashish to the heroine.  However, most of her thrillers were written before her fame as a way of providing financial support to the family.  These bore titles such as ‘Norna; or The Witch’s Curse’, ‘The Captive of Castile’, ‘The Moorish Maiden’s Vow’, ‘Pauline’s Passion and Punishment’, ‘The Mysterious Key and What It Opened’ and ‘The Abbott’s Ghost or Maurice Treherne’s Temptation.’

    Rather like Jo March in her garret, Louisa wrote stories such as ‘The Rival Prima Donnas’ where a singer takes vengeance by crushing her competitor to death with an iron ring.    Since Louisa’s stories were rediscovered, a number have been collected and republished.  ‘A Marble Woman’ is an eerie tale of domineering males, submissive women, opium addiction and possible incest. Drugs also feature in her work ‘Perilous Play’ where a group of young adults at a picnic experiment with hashish laced candies, almost ending in disaster.

    ‘The Abbot’s Ghost: or Maurice Treherne’s Temptation’ is set in a haunted English abbey and has quite a Dickensian feel to it.  The cast of characters sit around a hall fire telling ghost stories about haunted houses, coffins and skeletons.  Edith Snowden is Louisa’s strong willed woman with a mysterious past in this tale. ‘A Whisper in the Dark’ was a mystery story about Italian refugees, a spy, and a woman disguised as a man.

    ‘Pauline’s Passion and Punishment’ is another tale of vengeance with the manipulative protagonist Pauline enacting punishment on her fiancé Gilbert Redmond who breaks off their engagement in order to marry a much wealthier woman. Like many of Alcott’s female characters, Pauline is socially disadvantaged. Although born to a wealthy family, she is reduced to working as a governess.  The plot is highly melodramatic as Pauline enacts a plan to marry a younger man as well as making her former fiancé fall in love with again, simply so she can reject him.  The young sensitive Manuel has fallen in love with her and offers to kill Gilbert, however, she refuses, proclaiming:

    “There are fates more terrible than death, weapons more keen than poniards, more noiseless than pistols… Women use such, and work out a subtler vengeance than men can conceive. Leave Gilbert to remorse and me.”

    She does, however, persuade Manuel to marry her as she needs money in order to finance her revenge. She does not deceive Manuel regarding her motivations though and explains:

    “I want fortune, rank, splendor, and power; you can give me all these… I desire to show Gilbert the creature he deserted no longer poor, unknown, unloved, but lifted higher than himself, cherished, honored, applauded, her life one royal pleasure, herself a happy queen”

    The story is full of suspense which builds during the search for Gilbert and his new bride but I don’t wish to spoil the ending.  The story won a $100 dollar prize in a writing contest which helped with Louisa’s expenses in taking up her post as a Civil War nurse in Washington DC.

    Although Louisa did not publicly acknowledge her blood and thunder stories, and distanced herself through the use of her pen name, letters and journal entries indicate she enjoyed writing them:

    “I think my natural ambition is for the lurid style.  I indulge in gorgeous fancies and wish that I dared inscribe them upon my pages and set them before the public.”

    The main publishers of Louisa’s Blood and Thunder tales were The Flag of our Union as well as Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.  In Little Women these become the Blarneystone Banner and Weekly Volcano.  One of her letters stated:

    “I intend to illuminate The Ledger with a blood & thunder tales as they are easy to ‘compoze’ & are better paid than moral works.”

    Indeed, each story earned her between $50-75, which is roughly the equivalent of $2000 – $3000 today. Although the characteristics of these works clearly placed them within the gothic genre, her works are differentiated by her concern with character development.  Gone were the trembling, submissive heroines usually associated with 18th and 19th Century Gothic.  Her works are well worth a read if you like gothic fiction with a more active heroine.  Alcott’s women were strong, even if many of them were evil.

    These are some of the books I found helpful during my research.