The Poor Clare (1856), A Novella by Elizabeth Gaskell

I don’t usually include spoilers in my reviews, but The Poor Clare is obscure enough that in today’s post I’ll be throwing caution to the wind.

The work is a long short story/short novella by Elizabeth Gaskell, who’s better known for novel-length works including North and South (1854) and Mary Barton (1848), and for her biography of Charlotte Brontë (1857), which inspired my own forthcoming novel, Brontë’s Mistress.

The Poor Clare first appeared in serialised form in Household Words, a publication edited by Charles Dickens. Perhaps as a result of this, it alternates between feeling rushed and sorely in need of editing. There are no paragraph breaks, for instance, except in dialogue, and the development of the plot is uneven.

The story is narrated by an unnamed lawyer, who finds himself involved in ‘extraordinary events’ of a decidedly uncanny flavour. Employed to track down the rightful heir to a sizeable estate, he tracks down a strange old Irish woman, Bridget Fitzgerald, whose fervour for Catholicism is matched with a proclivity for meddling with magic. Bridget’s beautiful daughter, Mary, has disappeared years before, leading to her mother’s unhappiness and isolation. But now her child—if she had one—is next in line for this windfall inheritance.

What starts out like a mystery soon turns to a ghost story. Our lawyer tracks down the child, Lucy, more through luck than strategy, and promptly falls in love with her. But there’s a hitch. Lucy is suffering under a peculiar curse. She has a demonic double, which is hell bent on dogging her steps, ruining her reputation and driving men from her life. What’s more, it transpires that it was her own grandmother, Bridget, who unwittingly cursed her.

Gaskell writes Gothic well. Examples:

‘I was sitting with my back to the window, but I felt a shadow pass between the sun’s warmth and me, and a strange shudder ran through my frame.’

‘In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and right behind, another wicked, fearful self, so like me that my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which similitude of a body it belonged.’

The tone felt most similar to Behind a Mask, an 1866 story by Louisa May Alcott, writing as A.M. Barnard, which I reviewed back in 2013. And the doubling motif is suggestive of earlier (e.g. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818)) and later (e.g. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)) Gothic, as well as sensation fiction tropes. Notably, Laura, the heroine of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, which appeared three years later, also suffers due to her near resemblance with another.

The Poor Clare takes an unexpected turn when our characters end up in war-torn Antwerp (only Bridget’s service to strict religious order, the Poor Clares, will be enough, it seems, to undo the curse). It’s tempting to imagine that Gaskell was inspired by the Brontës to depict a Belgian setting.

All in, although set earlier, Gaskell’s The Poor Clare is delightfully Victorian, with lots to recommend it despite its flaws. Short enough to read in one sitting, it could also serve as a great introduction for teens to Gothic fiction or as a quick-to-digest comparison text for students focusing on some of the more canonical novels in the genre.

Which lesser-known Victorian novels/novellas/stories would you like the Secret Victorianist to review next? Let me know—here or on Facebook, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. And keep up with every facet of my life (reading, writing, work and life in NYC) via Instagram.

A Nineteenth-Century Thanksgiving

"Only one more day and then it will be the time to eat."

‘An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving’ (1881) is a short story by Louisa May Alcott telling the tale of a family Thanksgiving in New Hampshire in the 1820s. With ‘Gran’ma’ falling ill 20 miles away, preparing the holiday meal falls to Tilly and the rest of the seven-strong brood of farmer’s sons and daughters.

The girls’ efforts in the kitchen vary in success (the stuffing and plum pudding are a little beyond them) and a possible bear attack briefly interrupts proceedings, but all is done, as you’d imagine, with the appropriate familial spirit and gratitude.

Here are some details we learn about nineteenth-century Thanksgiving traditions:

The turkey isn’t the only one for whom Thanksgiving’s no fun

A pig has also been slaughtered for the occasion, but the girls can’t bring themselves to cook it: ‘"I couldn't do it. I loved that little pig, and cried when he was killed. I should feel as if I was roasting the baby," answered Tilly, glancing toward the buttery where piggy hung, looking so pink and pretty it certainly did seem cruel to eat him.’

Oranges are a fine Thanksgiving treat

The Bassett family has grown or reared most of their Thanksgiving food, but oranges ‘if they warn't too high’ are an especially acquired delicacy for the occasion.

The table is decorated with even more food

We are told: ‘nuts and apples at the corners gave an air, and the place of honor was left in the middle for the oranges yet to come.’

After the feasting come traditional games

The family play at ‘blind-man's bluff’, ‘hunt the slipper’ and ‘come, Philander’ once they’ve had their fill.

Festivities should end with kissing all around

‘Apples and cider, chat and singing, finished the evening, and after a grand kissing all round, the guests drove away in the clear moonlight which came out to cheer their long drive.’

Happy Thanksgiving from the Secret Victorianist! Do you know of any other nineteenth-century texts that touch on the holiday? Let me know – here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

An Old-Fashioned Girl, or What We Taught Girls in the 1860s

The Secret Victorianist recently read 1869 novel An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott (of Little Women fame).

In her Preface, Alcott wrote of the story’s didacticism:

The Old-Fashioned Girl is not intended as a perfect model, but as a possible improvement upon the Girl of the Period, who seems sorrowfully ignorant or ashamed of the good old fashions which make woman truly beautiful and honored, and, through her, render home what it should be - a happy place, where parents and children, brothers and sisters, learn to love and know and help one another.

What then ‘should’ a girl be and do to maintain domestic happiness, according to this nineteenth-century writer? Below are five lessons that Alcott and her heroine, Polly, taught me.

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

1. She shouldn’t go to theatre

Fourteen-year-old Polly is scandalised when she is taken to a play with suggestive humour and beguiling actresses:

"I know it wasn't proper for little girls to see, or I shouldn't have been so ashamed!" cried sturdy Polly, perplexed, but not convinced, even by Mrs. Smythe Perkins.

"I think you are right, my dear; but you have lived in the country, and haven't yet learned that modesty has gone out of fashion." And with a good-night kiss, grandma left Polly to dream dreadfully of dancing in jockey costume, on a great stage; while Tom played a big drum in the orchestra; and the audience all wore the faces of her father and mother, looking sorrowfully at her, with eyes like saucers, and faces as red as Fanny's sash.

2. She shouldn’t lose her temper

Polly is (predictably) skilled in the kitchen but doesn’t lose her cool when her friend’s brother/her own future husband eats the fruits of her labour.

Polly was not a model girl by any means, and had her little pets and tempers like the rest of us; but she didn't fight, scream, and squabble with her brothers and sisters in this disgraceful way, and was much surprised to see her elegant friend in such a passion. "Oh, don't! Please, don't! You'll hurt her, Tom! Let him go, Fanny! It's no matter about the candy; we can make some more!" cried Polly, trying to part them, and looking so distressed, that they stopped ashamed, and in a minute sorry that she should see such a display of temper.

3. She should notice others’ failings but only correct them by example

Polly manages to transform the Shaw household but rarely by expressing her opinion.

Polly wished the children would be kinder to grandma; but it was not for her to tell them so, although it troubled her a good deal, and she could only try to make up for it by being as dutiful and affectionate as if their grandma was her own.

4. She should exercise, but not to display herself

Polly’s pursuits are entirely wholesome (the antithesis of novels).

Another thing that disturbed Polly was the want of exercise…At home, Polly ran and rode, coasted and skated, jumped rope and raked hay, worked in her garden and rowed her boat; so no wonder she longed for something more lively than a daily promenade with a flock of giddy girls, who tilted along in high-heeled boots, and costumes which made Polly ashamed to be seen with some of them. So she used to slip out alone sometimes, when Fanny was absorbed in novels, company, or millinery, and get fine brisk walks round the park, on the unfashionable side, where the babies took their airings; or she went inside, to watch the boys coasting, and to wish she could coast too, as she did at home. She never went far, and always came back rosy and gay.

5. She should love in silence

As an adult, Polly suffers silently with her love for Tom throughout his engagement to another and his lengthy absence after going west. Her modesty is so extreme that she never actively confesses it, even to her friend, and it's not even made overt in the narration.

"Polly, is it Tom?"

Poor Polly was so taken by surprise, that she had not a word to say. None were needed; her telltale face answered for her, as well as the impulse which made her hide her head in the sofa cushion, like a foolish ostrich when the hunters are after it.

No novels, no plays and no opinions, a foolish ostrich who cannot escape her own desire to wed – that’s what we taught girls then. What do we teach them today?

What nineteenth-century novel would you like to see the Secret Victorianist read next? Let me know – here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

Neo-Victorian Voices: March, Geraldine Brooks (2005)

Jo said sadly, "We haven't got Father, and shall not have him for a long time." She didn't say "perhaps never," but each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was.

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868-9) was remarkable on its publication for centring on the domestic cares and the trials and tribulations of a group of female characters—sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy and their mother, Marmee. Becoming a ‘little woman’ meant facing hardships, taming your feelings and embracing self-sacrifice. The result is a beloved classic that is still read regularly by young girls and has been seen as one of the first representations of ‘all American’ femininity.

Geraldine Brooks takes this well-loved work and examines the opposite side of the coin. If Alcott tells us this is what it means to be a woman at home, what does it mean to be a man at war, and, specifically, what did it mean to be a man on the side of the North in the Civil War?

Geraldine Brooks (1955- )

In March (Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize), she takes the character of the girls’ absent father and constructs a parallel narrative to Little Women, forcing readers to confront the brutal realities of conflict, reassess the March household (in particular the parents’ marriage) and question the absolutism on many narratives concerning the North and its abolition of slavery.

One of my main criticisms of Valerie Martin’s 2003 Property, which I reviewed in this same series on my blog, was its idealised view of Northerners when it came to questions of race. Brooks doesn’t fall into the same trap. Mr March himself is liberal (you might think unbelievably so until you realise he was based on extensive research into Louisa May Alcott’s father Bronson, a vegan educator and reformer). But he is an idealist at sea in a pragmatic world, where Northerners are more than happy to take over plantations to make their fortunes, mistreating former slaves, whose lives are just as hard and more endangered now that they are no longer slaves, but ‘contraband’.

And, while in Property we are never given access to black characters’ views directly, Brooks gives us Grace, a former slave with whom March has had a sexual relationship. It is she who has the final say on March’s on-going involvement in the war:

“We have had a enough of white people ordering our existence! There are men of my own race more versed in how to fetch and carry than you will ever be. And there are Negro preachers aplenty who know the true language of our souls. A free people must learn to manage its own destiny.”

Grace is of course in a better position than many former slaves. She is well spoken and educated, due to being the illegitimate daughter of a plantation owner. But March’s life is actually saved by another black female character—Zannah. Zannah is mute (her tongue was cut out while a group of men raped her) and was totally illiterate until March’s arrival to teach on the plantation.

Her inability to communicate provides a stark contrast to Mr March. Unlike Zannah, he has the tools of language at his disposal, but he is still unable to tell the truth in his letters—instead sending Marmee and the girls a highly edited, and at times falsified, account of his time away from them.

This leaves Brooks with a plot problem. To be true to her source text, March must fall ill, prompting Marmee’s journey to Washington, and she can’t sustain this section in his first person. So, at the 200-page mark, we have a sudden shift of POV and continue the story from Marmee’s perspective.

The change is a little abrupt, and not just in tone. Marmee’s narrative doesn’t seem to be so much about developing her own character as hammering home that March’s perspective is unreliable—that a marriage can be made up of misunderstandings and resentment on both sides.  The result? The he said/she said at times feels a little overdone.

Brooks’s prose too at times tips over into the long-winded and dense, when the period could, I think, still be indicated with a lighter touch. Take for instance the following:

‘As I mentally composed these letters, it was inevitable that my mind would turn to the days when it was myself to whom such epistles had been directed. From there, my thoughts travelled in easy stages to the unravelling of my fortune, and to the exigencies of a current situation so threadbare that even my daughters are forced to toil for wages.’

But these quibbles over construction and execution are minor when compared with the overall genius of what Brooks has done, the scholarship of her research and the compelling nature of the story she has crafted from what was, in Alcott’s novel, an elision.

March doesn’t comfort like the familiar pages of Little Women. At times, it appals and horrifies. But the novels could be read as equally didactic. For Alcott, being a good woman in the nineteenth century was a story of self-improvement and self-sacrifice. For Brooks, being a good man in the nineteenth century seems to involve recognising injustice, but also recognising your own powerlessness to fight it everywhere and that pursuing your ideals could mean you’re doing an injustice to the little women waiting patiently at home.

Which novel should the Secret Victorianist read next as part of the Neo-Victorian Voices series? Let me know—here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist!

Review: Behind a Mask, Louisa May Alcott (A.M. Barnard), 1866

Louisa May Alcott

For many, Louisa May Alcott’s name is entirely synonymous with her semi-autobiographical Little Women (1868) – a novel which can in some ways be seen to epitomise clean cut nineteenth-century morality. Yet the stories Alcott published under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard are markedly different from her most famous literary creations. The novella Behind a Mask, written at the height of public desire for sensation, is dramatic, amoral, action-packed and ironically pointed – an example of an American writer not just imitating an import hot off the British press, but responding and adding to its generic complexity. 

For general readers: This is a riot (or as close to one as a story about a Victorian governess can be!). The scheming Jean Muir would eat Jane Eyre for breakfast (and most probably Rochester, Bertha and Mrs Fairfax too). At only a hundred pages this is a quick read and one which will see you very much rooting for the ‘bad’ woman, who sets out to win her man, and his fortune, with  determination and grit, destroying anyone who gets in her way with relish. The only downsides to the book are what it might do to your perceptions of a) men; and b) ageing. Top tips for entrancing a man include: fainting (of course), having aristocratic lineage (poverty is just about acceptable, commonness not), singing like a nightingale (don’t we all…), making his brother fancy you (even if it nearly ends in fratricide), mopping his brow when he’s indisposed (as always) and throwing yourself into his arms while staging amateur theatricals (I’ve still to test this one). And once you’re thirty, you’ll need to wear not only make-up and false hair but even false teeth to trick anyone into walking you down the aisle. 

For students: This is a little gem. The novella’s subtitle is ‘A Woman’s Power’, and the character of Jean Muir is perfect for comparison with Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s governess figures, or with Wilkie Collins’s Lydia Gwilt (in Armadale, also 1866). There’s also material here for those looking at nineteenth-century literary treatment of actresses or the ubiquity of railway accidents in novels of the 1860s, among other topics. The ending comes as a surprise even (or maybe especially) to sensation stalwarts, making it an interesting text for those unpacking the moral implications of sensation novels, their endings and the sensation novel (anti-)heroine. For students of American literature, seeing a different side to Alcott will be of interest, as will the publication history of the text and her adoption of a pseudonym. 

Have you read Behind a Mask or any other Louisa May Alcott short stories? Let me know here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist. And don't forget to VOTE for the Secret Victorianist in the UK Blog Awards.