Immerse In The Making Of A Marchioness, Part I And II (Emily Fox-Seton #1-2) Published By Frances Hodgson Burnett Delivered In Digital Edition

love Frances Hodgson Burnett books, She was a very clever women who had to for most of her life had to earn her own and her families living at a time when nice ladies did not do that.
All her book portrait life of this time very well and she very cleverly "hides her criticism of society and country very charmingly" as she would say.
Of course, there is quite a bit of racism and it is not a book for a feminist, but it is in no way as bad as with other Georgian writers.
She was one of Jane Austen's favourite writers, but managed the business of writing much better than poor Jane, warning: review contains spoilers

So this was a funny little book, despite the occasional silliness,

Frances Hodgson Burnett tells the story of Emily FoxSeton a gentlewoman in her thirties, who is the poor relation of an aristocratic family.
Her wealthy relatives do not really care for her, so Emily has to make do by living the life of a respectable working woman in the beginning of theth century London.
She works as a kind of secretary/errand girl for rich, noble ladies, There's even the mention of a duchess at some point, The whole plot brings to mind an Austen novel, Perhaps that's why it seems a bit dislocated from its time,

One of these noble ladies is Lady Maria Byrne who reminded me of Violet Crawley from Downton Abbey.
The witty old lady who has a great knowledge of the world and can say whatever she wants because she's rich and old and part of the aristocracy so no one really cares.
Lady Maria is lovable as a character precisely because she is funny although the author clearly made an herculean effort for her to be so but we are also told quite clearly that she is a thoroughly selfish woman.
While she obviously cares for Emily FoxSeton, she has no qualms in exploiting her and her talents to the point where poor Emily is exhausted.


Emily is the sweetest, kindest, most generous person, It's a wonder I didn't hate her, Her kindness and goodness are too exalted to be realistic, She is so gullible and uninteresting and she repeats clichés after clichés and yet, somehow, she managed to move me.
What is noteworthy about her is that the author is obviously aware that she is writing a ridiculous, pathetic character.
Only instead of hiding it, she owns up to it by openly stating her character's failings, Emily isn't stupid. But we are given several opportunities to see how her naivety and lack of cleverness make her unable to deal with certain situations.
It's as though Burnett is aware that if she wants Emily to possess a kindness that is almost impossible for a human to have then she has to have some flaws.


Anyway, Emily goes off to the countryside to help aforementioned Lady Maria with her party guests and the village festivities.
There she meets Lady Maria's cousin, Lord Walderhurst, ayear old Marquess, a widower who is being pressured to marry and have an heir.
Walderhurst is actually the most interesting character in all the book because he is the farthest thing from a Romantic or a Regency hero which one expects him to be given the setting and the way he's introduced.
He is kind and considerate but also tremendously dull, inarticulate and too set in his proper, Victorian ways to actually notice any change in himself or in the people around him.
He abhors sentimentality and takes a practical view of every subject under the sun, Burnett does not take him too seriously, She is aware that although he is a good man, he is also something of an absurdity, Near the ending of the story, as he is meeting his wife after his return from India, he feels "a slight movement in the cardiac region".
In many ways, Walderhust is a parody of the Victorian gentleman, At the same time, however, it would be insensitive to dismiss him as a simple caricature because his feelings are genuine and his confusion at finding himself in love with his wife is somewhat moving.


Walderhust is also a noble man in the true sense of the word, This is another reason he can't simply be written off as a parody, He decides to propose when he learns that Emily will be left homeless since her impossibly good tenants are moving to the North of England.
Walderhust is also the first person to understand that people often take advantage of Emily's kindness, He is angry with Lady Maria his cousin when he realises how she thoughtlessly uses Emily as a simple commodity with little consideration for her wellbeing.
He also sees that Emily's kindness and naivety are not the norm in polite society and he appreciates her all he more for it.


They marry. Emily moves to his Manor in the countryside and all seems well until Lord Walderhust is called away to India on some business or other.
Emily is left living with her faithful lady's maid Jane, the daughter of Emily's previous tenant, Mrs Cupp, a bunch of servants and her husband's cousin and his AngloIndian wife.
Alec Osborn is the villain of the book, And thank God for him, because this book was in dire need of a villain, I mean, everyone is so good that you start wondering if this is an alternative Victorian universe with no horrible people.


Osborn, his wife and her terrifying Indian maid upon whom all the racism of the book is concentrated start to resent Emily because now that Walderhust has married her there's no chance for the Osborns to inherit the title.


Emily, naturally, is completely oblivious to this hatred, She is, naturally, extremely kind to them, especially to Osborn's wife, Hester, whom she proceeds to take under her wing.
The whole plot takes a sinister and unexpected turn when you realise that Alec Osborn and the Indian maid are trying to kill Emily and her unborn child oh, yes, she's pregnant.
The Gothic murder plot is odd and even slightly amusing in its unpredictability, Imagine you're reading Pride and Prejudice when you suddenly realise that Mr Darcy's aunt is trying to kill Elizabeth,

It is true that the absurdity of this plot has limits which sober it up a little, Alec Osborn never explicitly discusses the plan, Hester struggles with her conscience and with the growing realisation of what her husband and her maid are planning, Furthermore, the plot is there to show that Emily really is a very naive person who knows nothing of the evilness of men.
So despite it all, this storyline does create an interesting tension,

The book fails tremendously at the end, Emily gives birth to a healthy boy but she gets very ill and almost dies, Lord Walderhust finally arrives from India, and his presence saves her, There's an obvious cliché here and one can't help but roll one's eyes a little, Emily's love and adoration for her husband was always evident, She thinks that she was terribly lucky to marry him which she was and proceeds to idealize him to an extreme.
To give the author credit, this is true to Emily's character, She was always inclined to idealize people's kindness towards her, Her neardeath experience is also used for Lord Walderhust to understand the extent of his feelings for her, Still, the dying plotdevice is just too much and just feels silly and melodramatic, It goes so far as declaring that Emily had expressively ordered the doctor to save the child instead of her if the situation demanded since she believed that her husband desperately wanted an heir.
When Lord Walderhust arrives we see that this is not the case at all, and that he wouldn't give up her for life for anything.
It is a nice sentiment but a bit soapoperish in the way it's written,

So why did I enjoy this book

Despite its silliness and clichés, I feel that the author does not take her characters too seriously.
There's a healthy, amusing distance she places between her thoughts and those of her characters, This makes the narrative very funny,

I also enjoy the little elements of realism, For instance, Emily's preoccupation with money and making a respectable living is remarkable, We see her discussing prices of things, worrying about where she'll end up as an old woman when her strength to work starts to fail.
Here the subject of money, livelihood, the every day problems of a woman in Emily's initial position are written quite

explicitly.


What is most annoying about this book is that we are supposed to believe that such a story would have gone exactly the way it did.
Emily is very kind and the world seems to be very kind to her, Yet is it really believable that Lady Maria would be so fine with a minor, impoverished second rate noblewoman whom she basically employs marrying her cousin, a rich Marquis Would polite society as a whole have received Emily the way it did, so nicely and with such good will Would Emily have adapted so well to her new circumstances Wouldn't she become something of an outcast Where is the classism of British Victorian society I feel that the novel would have been much, much better if it had been forced to confront these issues instead of forcing upon us the murder plot and the heroine's near death.


Furthermore, it is undeniable that the novel repeats itself constantly, We are often told that Emily is kind but not very intelligent, that Lord Walderhust is a good man but not an intellectual, that Lady Maria is witty and slightly amoral.
The characters change little throughout the story with the exception of Walderhust who discovers, to his astonishment, that he does love his wife.
.