Claim Now The Mystery Of Mrs Blencarrow Queen Eleanor And Fair Rosamond Originated By Mrs. Oliphant Ready In Interactive Format
nice pair of novellas by one of the numerous nineteenth century female novelists who kept a whole host of people alive with their pen, The first story is about widow Joan Blencarrow, whom we can only surmise to have yielded to her young "stewart" Everard Brown in a moment of loneliness or sensuality.
What brought her to marry him is never discussed, What Mrs Oliphant concentrates on is what dire consequences Mrs Blancarrow's socially unacceptable marriage could have on her and herchildren, It's really clever that we never see Mrs Blencarrow engaging in conversation with her "husband", as it underlines the fact that such a union, in such a society, is beyond the pale and doomed to failure.
Similarly the second story is full of understatements, To all appearances, Mr. and Mrs. LycettLandon are a happy couple with the usual Victorian brood ofchildren, Mr. LycettLandon is a senior partner in a Liverpool cotton firm, and everything seems to hum along fine until he removes himself to the London branch on the grounds that a junior needs close supervision.
For months, his absence is hardly noticed by his wife and children, who love him dearly but get along fine without him, But of course, one day things start to look just a little bit off and Mrs LycettLandon sets off for London with her eldest son Horace Horace, to check up on the old man.
What she finds is beyond anything she could have possibly anticipated: her husband has actually gone and married a young, unsuspecting girl, as if he thought he could get away with bigamy in England! Stunned by the blow, Mrs LycettLandon only wants to spare her children from the consequences of a scandal.
And, amazingly enough, she succeeds in staying in her house, with her children, while some kind of deal is brokered by her husband's partner, Eventually, LycettLandon starts to visit his old family again, without his circumstances or the fate of his young bride being elucidated,
What is surprising about these stories is that the reticence we associate with the Victorians, instead of being detrimental, works very well to make these plots full of holes fresh and contemporary.
.Mrs Oliphant, one of the outstanding writers of the nineteenth century, was in her time as wellknown as Dickens, George Eliot and Mrs Gaskell: the exemplary woman of letters is how the literary critic Queenie Leavis described her.
And the novelist Penelope Fitzgerald's claim was that Mrs Oliphant is at her very best in novellas and short stories, She suggested that two of them, The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrowand Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond, might well be reprinted together, which is what we have now done, and pointed out that the strongest theme running through all the books is that of the helpless man and the strong woman.
Both novellas are about women left on their own to run their own households,
The above is from the Perspephone website, I've read Mrs. Blencarrow but not the second story, Mrs. Oliphant may have been wildly popular in her day but she's no Dickins or Wilkie Collins, I figured out the mystery of Mrs, B. quickly, though not the denouement, What is probably most interesting is that what caused the issue in the first place is never mentioned and not really even alluded to, this being the Victorian era.
The fact that I wasn't wild about Mrs, B. has put me off reading the second story, Perhaps it will be better than the first,
Yes, the second story was much better, Doubled the number of in my review, My interest was held from the get go, even though I knew what the mystery was from other reading, It apparently was inspired by something in Mrs, Oliphant's family. The mother in this story was appealing, intelligent and generous in figuring out how to deal with a devastating blow to her and her family, Writing was good stories both rather depressing but engrossing, It was better thanstars, Loved the old language and phrasing used, Stories would be quite scandalous back in the day, Mrs. Oliphant the author must have been quite a force! Another fantastic selection from the great publishing house of Persephone Books!
Both the novellas in this book run along similar lines.
The women are the stonger characters and drive the narrative, the men who are cause of their problems, have a lesser role, are weaker and less reliable.
Considering their themes of broken marriages, these novellas seem very unVictorian like, Victorian society rules touch both central female characters: In the title novella, society is a harsh critic of Mrs Blencarrow when rumours of her secret marriage begin the circulate.
In the second, Mrs LycettLandon avoids scandal and gossip, by keeping the truth of her husbands defection to herself,
This is a slight book, beautifully written, the tension of each plot, just right, These novellas sit perfectly together, Persephone do publish such charming books, and this is no exception, I loved these two novellas which have a lot in common, Despite the titles, 'The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow' is not a murder mystery and 'Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond' is not historical, Both are about hidden
secrets and both show middleaged Victorian women acting in strong and unexpected ways, See my review of The Mystery of Mrs, Blencarrow here:
sitelink wordpress. com/
See my review of Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund here:
sitelink wordpress. com/ Two novellas, revealing a lot about Victorian domestic life, Mrs Blencarrow is a respectable widow whose dark secret is revealed but without the melodrama you might expect, Eleanor's husband has been increasingly often absent from home until one day he doesn't come back, This is a surprisingly realistic tale, made more effective by its deliberate lack of drama, Like life, really that's the point, Dont be fooled by the exciting titles this is a pair of quiet, domestic tragedy novellas, penned by the somewhat forgotten Mrs Oliphant, Like the author, the protagonists of both stories are middleaged women with numerous children, They are dependable, constant and everything a woman of good standing ought to be and they are both the dignified victims of thoughtless men and a society that little values the happiness of older women.
Victoriana aplenty in these latethcentury tales, and lightly archaic prose in abundance, Much slower in places than some modern readers will care for, but the richly woven layers of quiet female suffering were worth it, in my opinion! Intriguing stories, and interesting how in both novellas the obvious dramatic scenes are left out.
Sort of antimelodramas. .