Category: Book reviews
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William Dean Howells (1837-1920) published ‘A Hazard of New Fortunes’ in 1890. It deals with the lives of several inhabitants of New York, most of them connected in some way with the publication of a fortnightly review called Every Other Week. The owner, Dryfoos, was once a farmer but has made his fortune from natural…
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Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923-2014) published her second novel ‘The Long View’ in 1956. It tells the story of a middle class marriage in five episodes, arranged in reverse chronological order. We first encounter heroine Antonia Fleming in 1950, when her coercive husband Conrad has become almost completely detached. We trace their story back, through infidelities,…
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I intended my next book to be Maurice Baring’s ‘Cat’s Cradle’, but soon discovered that I’d read it already! So I switched to ‘Marcella’ by Mrs Humphry Ward, aka Mary Augusta Ward. This is her. Previously I’d read only her ‘Robert Elsmere’, which I very much enjoyed. ‘Marcella’ was written six years later, in 1894.…
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As you can see from the cover, William Boyd (no less) rates ‘The Polyglots’ (1925) as: “The most influential English novel of the Twentieth Century.” I would be inclined to award that prize to ‘Ulysses’, perhaps, or else ‘To the Lighthouse’. Those are both great literary masterpieces, while this, emphatically, is not. The narrative, such…
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This is Mary Cholmondeley (1859-1925) whose novel ‘Red Pottage’ (1899) is, in my opinion, a neglected classic. It tells the story of two very different female friends, Rachel West and Hester Gresley. The main plot revolves around the consequences of adultery: at the husband’s behest, he and his rival draw lots. The loser is honour…
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Storm Jameson published these three novellas in the early 1930s – and they are heavily redolent of that period. Each examines the life of a woman who struggles to overcome her circumstances: First, a novelist, increasingly overshadowed by her less talented but more charismatic, beautiful (and promiscuous) childhood friend. Second, a wealthy heiress who, escaping…
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Here’s my latest report from some of the less frequented avenues of literature. Boleslaw Prus was the pen name of Polish author Alexsander Glowacki (1847-1912). He first published ‘Lalka’ (‘The Doll’) in serialised form between 1887 and 1889. It is panoramic and ambitious, reflecting the development – and arguably the decay – of Polish society…
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This is Elizabeth Drew Stoddard (1823-1902). She published her first novel ‘The Morgesons’ in 1862. We follow the development of heroine, Cassandra Morgeson, and her unworldly sister Veronica. Cassandra develops a taste for the wrong kind of man, falling in love with her married cousin Charles. After he dies when their carriage overturns, she becomes…
Eponymous 