Monthly Archives: February 2021

Persuasion

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Persuasion by Jane Austen

In Persuasion, her last novel, Austen explores the theme of postponed but enduring love, delayed by class boundaries and excessive pride. Eight years ago, Anne Elliot fell in love with a poor but ambitious young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. The Elliots were dissatisfied with Anne’s choice, feeling he was not distinguished enough for their family, and her older friend and mentor, Lady Russell, acting in place of Anne’s deceased mother, persuaded her to break off the match. Now 27 and considered a spinster, Anne re-encounters her former fiance, now a captain, as he courts her spirited young neighbor, Louisa Musgrove. The self-interested machinations of Anne’s older sister Elizabeth, of Elizabeth’s friend Mrs. Clay, and of Anne’s father’s heir, William Elliot, constitute an important subplot.

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Find the Woman

Find the Woman by Gelett Burgess

Find the Woman by Gelett Burgess

Who was Belle Charmion? If you really care to know, as John Fenton did, you must go with him on his quest, hither and yon over New York, into strange houses and through side streets at midnight, a shuttle in the secret loom of fate, weaving in and out through many-colored threads, until the pattern of the mystery is made clear. For the warp of his strange, adventurous career – love and beauty and diamonds. For the woof – some few cross currents of crime and misery. There, in brief, is the web of his drama.

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The Little Gray Lady

The Little Gray Lady by Francis Hopkinson Smith

The Little Gray Lady by Francis Hopkinson Smith

As every Christmas for the last 20 years, the Little Gray Lady lights a candle in her room and spends the evening alone, thinking of a great mistake she has made so long ago. This year, however, things are to play out differently

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Middlemarch

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Middlemarch by George Eliot

The book examines the role of education in the lives of the characters and how such education and study has affected the characters. Rosamond Vincy’s finishing school education is a foil to Dorothea Brooke’s religiously-motivated quest for knowledge. Rosamond initially admires Lydgate for his exotic education, and his intellect. A similar dynamic is present in Dorothea and Casaubon’s relationship, with Dorothea revering her new husband’s intellect and eloquence. In both cases, however, the young wives’ expectations of their husbands intellects are not reflected in reality.

Despite extreme erudition, Mr. Casaubon is afraid to publish because he believes that he must write a work that is utterly above criticism. In contrast, Lydgate at times arrogantly flaunts his knowledge, making enemies with his fellow physicians. He regards the residents of Middlemarch with a certain amount of contempt stemming from his belief that the townspeople are backwards and uninteresting. However, his education has not included tact and politicking, skills necessary in a small town but are seen by Lydgate as below him, the brilliant doctor.

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Bonne-Marie

Bonne-Marie by Henry Greville

Bonne-Marie by Henry Greville

Bonne-Marie, Henry Gréville’s last work, will no doubt create a sensation, such is its freshness, beauty, and delicacy. It is the story of a young girl, the daughter of a smuggler in Normandy, on the coast of France. Having been educated in a Convent, at Cherbourg, she returns from school where her father had placed her, and struggles in spite of her discontent to do her duty in her humble home. She turns a deaf ear to a lover’s pleading, and when her father is killed in a fray with the Coast-Guard, she leaves her home and goes to Paris to seek her fortune. The tale of her struggles with poverty, of her debut as a singer in one of the celebrated Cafés – where, after a great success, she loses her heart to an artist, is simply, powerfully and most pathetically told. What happens after we must leave the readers of this charming volume to discover for themselves, all of which is beautifully sketched, and the story from beginning to end is pure, fresh and breezy. Mrs. Sherwood’s English in this translation is beyond all praise – it flows freely on from beginning to end.

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