Literary Ramblings

I've collected a few more literary links & interesting articles to share.

The most exciting news I've heard for ages is that Scott from the blog Furrowed Middlebrow is partnering with Dean Street Press to launch his very own imprint, Furrowed Middlebrow Books. Here's the revelation of the colophon for the new imprint & here's the announcement of the first of three authors to be reprinted - Rachel Ferguson. Scott will be reprinting three of Ferguson's novels - A Footman for the Peacock, Evenfield & A Harp in Lowndes Square - & you'll find more information on all three books plus Scott's enthusiastic reviews on his blog. Dean Street Press have done such a great job of resurrecting unfairly neglected Golden Age crime writers that I'm sure they will be the perfect partners for Scott's new venture. I can't wait to find out who the other two launch authors will be. I have my fingers crossed for more Winifred Peck.

Edited to add : I was right! I can't wait, especially for the mystery novels.

I love articles written by experts (or obsessives) who look at a book & can only see their special subject in it. This article from the Cricket Country website reviews the British Library Crime Classic reprint of Thirteen Guests by J Jefferson Farjeon entirely in terms of the cricket references.


A couple of weeks ago, ABC Classic FM revealed the Top 100 Voice over the Queen's Birthday long weekend. Every year they compile a different Top 100, voted on by listeners & this year it was the voice - opera, choral, folk song. I didn't enjoy it as much as previous years because I don't enjoy opera so a lot of it didn't interest me as much as previous years when they've featured Baroque & Before, the Concerto or Mozart. However, we're also coming to the end of a mammoth eight week election campaign & this little bit of promotion for the countdown made me smile. I don't think you need to know who the politicians are to recognize the species.

I've become aware of the very definite ideas that readers have about translation lately. I'm reading The Tale of Genji in Royall Tyler's translation but I know that there are devoted partisans of other translations. Mirabile Dictu discusses it here. Janet Malcolm has also recently written an article about translations of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. The fans of the Constance Garnett or Maude translations are passionate about their choice & I was interested to read more about the dislike of some critics (including Janet Malcolm) for the Pevear & Volokhonsky translations of the Russian classics. All the discussion & discord has made me want to read Anna again.

I read it first in my teens, influenced by the BBC TV series with Nicola Pagett, Eric Porter & Stuart Wilson. I'm still very fond of this adaptation (even though a friend to whom I loaned the DVDs laughed at the fake beards). It was the TV tie-in edition & I think it was the Constance Garnett translation. I also heard Tchaikovsky's Manfred symphony on the radio the other day & that reminded me of the series as well because it was used as the theme music.

The next time I read it was this OUP edition translated by Louise & Aylmer Maude. Now I'm tempted by the new OUP edition translated by Rosamund Bartlett. Here is Bartlett discussing whether a new translation is even needed & here's a review of several of the newer translations.

Finally, I really like Elaine Showalter's idea of celebrating Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway with Dallowday to compete with James Joyce & Bloomsday. Clarissa Dalloway's party took place on June 13th 1923 so why shouldn't it be as celebrated as much as Leopold Bloom's walk around Dublin? Frankly the food would have to be more appealing than kidneys on toast, Gorgonzola sandwiches & Guinness. We might even be offered cucumber sandwiches & a cup of tea - much more to my taste.

Doctor Thorne - Anthony Trollope

Doctor Thorne opens with the events of twenty years before. Henry Thorne seduces Mary Scatcherd, sister of the local stonemason. When she becomes pregnant, her brother, Roger, beats Thorne so badly that he dies. Tried for murder, he is convicted of manslaughter when the facts of the case became known, & serves six months in jail. Henry Thorne's brother, Thomas, is the local doctor, a steady, sober man in comparison with his wicked brother. Dr Thorne pities poor Mary Scatcherd in her sad situation. When Mary's former suitor still wants to marry her & emigrate to America, he does so on the condition that she leaves her daughter behind. Dr Thorne pledges to bring up baby Mary & care for her & Mary Scatcherd agrees.

Twenty years later, Mary Thorne has grown up beautiful, kind & the apple of her uncle's eye. She was sent off as a little girl to be educated but has lived with her uncle since she was 13. She is on terms of friendship with the local squire's family, the Greshams of Greshamsbury. Doctor Thorne is a friend of the Squire & is tolerated by his haughty wife, Lady Arabella, who never forgets that she is a member of the De Courcy family of Courcy Castle. Squire Gresham has squandered the fortune left him by his father. His daughters will have tiny dowries & his only son, Frank, will have to marry well to hold on to what's left of the estate. Marrying well means marrying money & Lady Arabella is soon scheming with her sister-in-law, Lady de Courcy, to bring this about. Lady de Courcy has invited Miss Dunstable, heiress of an ointment fortune, to Courcy Castle, & wants Frank to marry her.

Frank Gresham is a nice boy, that's the only way I can describe him. Fond of his family, conscious of his father's perilous financial position, loyal to his friends & eager to do the right thing. Frank is also in love with Mary Thorne. Lady Arabella has always disapproved of Mary's intimacy with her children, not only because she has no money. Her ambiguous social position is also a problem. The sad story of her parents has been forgotten by many & the young Greshams & Mary herself have no idea that she's illegitimate. However, once Mary is of an age to marry, she begins to ask her uncle questions about her origins.

Roger Scatcherd, the stonemason, has prospered. He is now a rich man, a baronet, living at Boxall Hill, land that once belonged to Squire Gresham, but was sold to pay debts. Scatcherd has been a friend of Doctor Thorne's ever since the terrible events of twenty years before. Doctor Thorne helped Scatcherd's wife & child while he was in jail but the Scatcherds know nothing about Mary. Sir Roger's health is poor because he's an alcoholic. His drinking bouts & irrational rages are undermining his constitution & he refuses to listen to Doctor Thorne's advice. Doctor Thorne has never told Sir Roger about Mary because he fears that the Scatcherds would want to take her away from him. He knows how unhappy Mary would be with Sir Roger & his wife & so he says nothing. However, when Sir Roger, after another bout of illness, makes a new will, leaving a fortune to his sister Mary's eldest child, but without naming the child, Doctor Thorne, as executor of the will, must tell Sir Roger the truth. The will leaves this eldest child the money if he or she outlives Sir Roger & his dissolute only child, Louis Philippe, who will inherit when he turns twenty-five.

Doctor Thorne is faced with a terrible dilemma. He knows that Mary & Frank are in love. He believes it is probable that Sir Roger will soon be dead as he refuses to stop drinking. Louis Philippe is well on the way to emulating his father & could very well die young, leaving Mary a considerable heiress. Sir Roger refuses to amend the ambiguous wording of the will. Should Doctor Thorne tell the Greshams of Mary's possible inheritance in the hope that they will allow Frank to marry her? What if Louis Philippe reforms & lives to a ripe old age? Frank & Mary would be left with nothing.

I loved this book. This was actually a reread as I read the Barsetshire novels over 30 years ago. I was prompted to reread it because OUP kindly sent me a review copy of the new edition. We haven't seen the new TV series here yet but I'll be interested to see it when it makes an appearance. After 30 years, it was like reading a brand new novel anyway. I was especially taken with the good humour of the narrator. I thought of him as Trollope just as I think of the narrator of A Christmas Carol as Dickens & I kept thinking of Trollope standing in the spirit at my elbow (as Dickens writes when the Ghost of Christmas Past visits Scrooge). Doctor Thorne is also a very funny book. Whether it's the satire of Lady Arabella & Lady de Courcy's attempts to find a rich bride for Frank & his attempts to evade them or Augusta Gresham's miserable engagement to Mr Moffat which ends with Frank horsewhipping him, much to the Squire's approval, the tone is amused & genial.

Trollope's descriptions are also pithy & very amusing. He describes Mr Winterbones, Sir Roger's confidential secretary as "a little, withered, dissipated, broken-down man, whom gin and poverty had nearly burnt to a cinder, and dried to an ash." He still tries too hard with some of his character's  names, Dr Fillgrave, Miss Gushing, the easily bribed publican Mr Reddypalm & the political agents Mr Nearthewinde & Mr Closerstil. Doctor Thorne himself can be as prickly as his name when he feels he's being slighted & Mary had spirit & wit, she's no simpering young miss. I especially enjoyed her encounter with Lady Arabella where her pertness is on a par with Elizabeth Bennet's when she is confronted by Lady Catherine.There's also a very funny & satirical chapter consisting of letters between Augusta Gresham & her cousin, Lady Amelia. I don't think I remember another Trollope novel where the narrator is so very present with comments & asides.

There are some implausibilities in the plot. I can only think that Sir Roger's brain had been scrambled by drink for Mary's identity to be such a surprise to him. Doctor Thorne had only one sibling, Henry, & Scatcherd knew his sister was pregnant when Henry died. Even though he was told the child was dead, where did he think the doctor's niece had sprung from? Also, I would think that Mary's illegitimacy might invalidate the terms of Sir Roger's will without all the agonising that the Doctor goes through about what to tell the Greshams. Actually Trollope amusingly heads off any legal quibbling by boldly stating that if the terms of the will are incorrect, they've just been wrongly described! The critics had been scathing about the legal detail of his previous novel, The Three Clerks, so he was getting in first in Doctor Thorne. Still, surely Mary Scatcherd's legitimate American children would have challenged the will? Anyway, it's Trollope's story & he tells us in so many words that it's his world & he'll do what he pleases with his characters.

I couldn't help wondering what Wilkie Collins would have done with the same material. Trollope lays everything out for us so that by about Chapter 10 we know all about Mary's parentage, the terms of Sir Roger's will & the potential implications for Mary & her marriage to Frank. We then have another 35 chapters where Doctor Thorne works through every possible moral implication of these circumstances. His scruples won't allow him to neglect Louis when he's made an unwilling trustee of the estate, or raise Mary's hopes by telling her of her possible inheritance.Wilkie would have made a mystery of every part of it with cliffhangers galore & I would have been on the edge of my seat. However, I was surprised how suspenseful the book was, considering that I already knew all the secrets & had a good idea of the ending. I read it over Easter & was glued to my chair for hours at a time.

The Lost Tudor Princess - Alison Weir

I love reading about marginal characters. In her lifetime, Lady Margaret Douglas was anything but marginal. However, in the last 400 years, her story has been overshadowed by the stories of those other Tudors & Stuarts - Mary I, Elizabeth I, the wives of Henry VIII & Mary, Queen of Scots - & although she was related to them all, her own story has been lost. I was very pleased to discover that one of my favourite biographers, Alison Weir, was writing about Margaret & the result is a new & fascinating angle on Tudor politics.

Lady Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Henry VIII's sister, Margaret, Queen of Scots, & her second husband, the Earl of Angus. Queen Margaret's marriage to a Scottish nobleman after the death of James IV at Flodden, may have been necessary for her own protection, but it meant she lost support among the fractious Scots nobility. She was deprived of the custody of her sons, James (now James V at the age of only 1) & baby Alexander, & forced to flee to England to seek the protection of her brother. This meant that her daughter, Margaret, was born in England. This had important consequences as the succession to the English throne became increasingly tangled in the later years of Henry VIII's reign.Queen Margaret's marriage to Angus was not happy & they separated when Lady Margaret was a child. She spent most of her childhood with her father in England at the court of her uncle. She grew up with Princess Mary, shared her education & her devotion to the Catholic religion, & was a favourite of the King. She served in the households of Henry's Queens & her marriage prospects were important as she became a factor in Henry's political machinations.

Margaret fell disastrously in love with Lord Thomas Howard in 1535 when she was around 20 years old. As I described in this Sunday Poetry post, the lovers were thrown into the Tower & Margaret was lucky to escape with her life. The result was that Henry passed an Act of Parliament making it a treasonous offense to aspire to marry anyone in the line of succession without the King's permission. This had momentous consequences in Margaret's later life but, even so, she fell in love again, three years later, to another member of the Howard family (Charles Howard, brother of Queen Katherine Howard) & was lucky to be pardoned again. Margaret must have felt frustrated, bored & unsure about her future prospects as she was by now in her late twenties, practically an old maid by 16th century standards. Eventually, Henry agreed to her marriage to Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, a Scots nobleman with his own claim to the Scottish throne.

Lennox had spent much of his early life in France (where he adopted the French spelling of his surname) but returned to Scotland on the death of James V in 1542. James's death had left another child to inherit the throne, & a daughter at that, six day old Mary. Lennox's family had a long-standing feud with the Hamiltons, the Protestant Earls of Arran, & a power struggle was in progress as factions fought over the Regency. Lennox hoped to strengthen his own claim to the English throne by marriage to Margaret but, surprisingly, their marriage became a love match & they were devoted to each other. As the Protestant faction in Scotland gained the ascendancy, the Lennoxs spent most of their time in England, at their estates in the North. Margaret spent time at Court, serving Henry's last queen, Katherine Parr, but, as a Catholic, avoided London during the reign of her cousin, Edward VI. She was overjoyed when her friend & cousin, Catholic Mary I, ascended the throne, but disappointed when Mary died only five years later & the Protestant Elizabeth became queen. Margaret was also furious that she had been denied the earldom of Angus when her father died. Accusations of illegitimacy were leveled against her as well as her sex & her English birth. She fought futilely for years to succeed to the earldom.

It is now, with her rival in power, that the real Margaret emerges, a strong, 'masterful, ambitious woman'  of forty-three 'with more than a dash of Tudor spirit', whose ambitions and prejudices had hitherto been fed, or kept in check, by circumstances, and who had been denied her rights to a great earldom and a crown. It would not be surprising if she felt angry and wronged, especially now that she found herself in opposition to a powerful enemy (Elizabeth) who represented everything she despised. Margaret had already demonstrated that she had an audacious, passionate nature and a talent for dangerous scheming, and it was at this time that her relentless ambition and determination came into evidence. Sher did not shrink from what Elizabeth would certainly have seen as treasonable activities, although Margaret would not have regarded them as such. Two forces now drove her: her fierce ambition for her sons, and a burning desire to see England and Scotland united under Catholic rule.

Margaret had eight children, of whom only two sons, Henry, Lord Darnley & Charles survived childhood. Margaret's ambitions soon centred on the possibility of marrying her son, Darnley, to Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary had been sent to France as a child & had married the Dauphin, who briefly reigned as Francis II. After Francis's death, Mary returned to Scotland & her second marriage was an important political decision. It was assumed that a Queen Regnant must marry & the political & religious differences in Scotland made her choice fraught with difficulty. Various Catholic foreign princes were proposed; Elizabeth I even offered her own favourite, Robert Dudley, & Margaret was keen to unite her own claim to the English throne to the claim of the Queen of Scots. Darnley had been born in England which was seen as a distinct advantage. However, Margaret had learned nothing from her own romantic history & pursued her intrigues even though she knew Elizabeth would disapprove of two potential successors combining their claims.

Darnley went to Scotland where Mary fell in love with him. He was a stupid, weak, vicious young man, handsome, but fatally spoilt by his doting mother. The marriage was famously disastrous & soon broke down. Darnley's murder in 1567 devastated Margaret, who blamed Mary for Darnley's death, which led to a feud between the two women that wasn't healed for many years. The only bright spot for Margaret was the birth of James, her first grandchild, undisputed heir to the Scottish throne & an obvious successor to Elizabeth, who seemed increasingly unlikely to marry & have children of her own.

Although Margaret spent more time imprisoned in the Tower after Darnley's marriage to Mary, she was undeterred in her ambitions. She was fortunate in her two great supporters & friends at Court, William Cecil & Robert Dudley, who did not abandon her &used their influence with Elizabeth in her favour. .After Mary was forced from the Scottish throne & fled to England where she spent the next eighteen years in genteel imprisonment, Margaret was relentless in pushing for her to be tried for the murder of Darnley. Eventually, she accepted that Mary was innocent of the foreknowledge of the plot & the two women were reconciled. Lennox was recalled to Scotland to act as Regent for his grandson, King James, a dangerous job that was virtually a death sentence. The Lennoxs were unhappy to be parted but Margaret played a crucial role in his Regency, as a source of contact with Elizabeth's Court & an advisor through their constant correspondence. Lennox was assassinated in 1571, leaving Margaret bereft & focusing all her thoughts on her only surviving son, Charles.

Margaret's final intrigue was her scheme to marry her son, Charles, to Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the formidable Bess of Hardwick. Bess was married to the Earl of Shrewsbury, jailer of Mary, Queen of Scots, no stranger to intrigue herself. Although Bess & Queen Mary had a strained relationship, Mary was keen to help her brother-in-law Charles to a good marriage or maybe she was just bored & eager to help along a budding romance. Margaret was perennially hard up & Bess was keen to see her daughter married to a potential heir to the throne. The two matrons contrived a meeting between the young couple, they duly fell in love & were secretly married. Queen Elizabeth was furious & even more so when a baby girl, Arbella, was born, another potential heir to her throne born on English soil. Elizabeth instituted an inquiry into what she saw as a treasonable conspiracy & Margaret was once again imprisoned in the Tower. Eventually she was released & lived with Charles, Elizabeth & baby Arbella in Hackney, deeply in debt & worried about Charles, who was soon to die of tuberculosis. Margaret then spent her final years trying to have Arbella recognised as her father's heir to the Lennox estates. She died at the age of 62 in 1578.

As Weir writes at the conclusion of the book, it's amazing that Margaret Douglas lived as long as she did. Not many Tudor women left the Tower alive & Margaret was imprisoned more than once & suspected of treason several more times. She was ambitious & a determined intriguer who schemed for her family's advancement until the end of her life. During the reign of Henry VIII, at a time when almost all the potential heirs to the English throne were female, she played an important role in the political machinations of the Court although she had little power herself. Her marriage was arranged yet she & Matthew were very happy together. She was the dominant partner, the driving force in their relationship, & he wrote to her constantly when they were parted, addressing her as My Dear Meg & Dearest Madge. She outlived everyone who was of any importance to her, except little Arbella, & struggled with debt throughout her life. Her ambition was driven by a burning sense of injustice that her rights to inheritance had been trampled on, mostly because of her sex. I can imagine her as a suffragette; prison & hunger strikes would have held no fears for this indomitable woman. Alison Weir, as always, has written a meticulously researched account that is as gripping as a novel. If you love Tudor history as I do, this book will illuminate the life of a woman usually seen in her role as Darnley's mother or Mary, Queen of Scots' aunt. Weir puts Margaret Douglas back in her rightful place as an important player in Tudor politics.

Victoria : a life - A N Wilson

The life of Queen Victoria is very well-known & I've read many books about her. I've read biographies, her letters to her daughter, biographies of her children, her servants, her Prime Ministers, her ancestors & books on many aspects of the Victorian period. So, another biography of Queen Victoria & especially a biography I listened to on audio for almost 20 hours, has to be fresh & different to engage my attention. Instead of retelling the story of the book, I thought I'd concentrate on what makes this biography different from the others I've read over the years.

First of all, it's the writing style & the persona of the author. A N Wilson is a distinguished biographer & novelist. I've read several of his biographies & non-fiction books & enjoyed them all. I have his massive biography of Tolstoy on the tbr shelves & I've just bought the audio book version on Audible so I may listen rather than read as the book has been there for many years. Wilson's style is amused, sympathetic, almost confiding. He obviously felt considerable affection for Victoria & he delights in quoting her most unreasonable comments from her letters. This isn't done in a mean-spirited way, as though he's showing how ridiculous she was, but as a way of showing how human she was, as inconsistent as any other person. He shows the Queen in all her contradictory moods. He also emphasizes parts of her character & personality that haven't been emphasized enough.

The importance of the Queen's German heritage is a major theme of Wilson's biography. Victoria was three-quarters German, after all. Her paternal grandmother, Queen Charlotte, was a Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz & her mother, Victoire of Saxe-Coburg was also German. She married Albert, nephew of Victoire, & her closest advisors in her girlhood & the first years of her reign were Baroness Lehzen, her governess, & Baron Stockmar, Albert's friend & advisor who became hers as well. She spoke German as easily as she did English &, when she was especially agitated or excited, her written English took on the grammatical constructions of German. Prince Albert's dream of a liberal German state headed by Prussia was also Victoria's dream. Victoria wasn't very interested in European politics early in her reign but, especially after Albert's death in 1861, as her children married into European royal houses, she grew more involved & more determined to do what she could to realise that vision. Her role as Grandmother of Europe allowed her to interfere in everything from the marriages of her grandchildren to whether or not a particular member of a German royal house should accept the crown of Greece.

Wilson also disputes the extent to which Victoria withdrew from public affairs in the years after Albert's death. She certainly suffered from extreme grief & depression in the 1860s & she shrank from public engagements & speeches because of her shyness. However, she didn't neglect her role as constitutional monarch & demanded to be kept up to date on all political matters - even if that meant that her ministers had to travel to Osborne or Balmoral to consult her & keep her informed. She could be stubborn & unreasonable but she had been well-trained by Albert & Stockmar in the duties of a monarch & she was determined to be involved in everything that concerned Britain & the Empire.

Victoria's relationships with her Highland servant, John Brown & her Indian secretary, Hafiz Abdul Karim, known as the Munshi have always been controversial. One of Victoria's most endearing qualities was her lack of racism or prejudice, her "lack of side" as Wilson calls it. She felt completely at home among her Scottish subjects, especially Highlanders, & she was fascinated by India. Her title of Empress of India may have been a bit of a joke to some politicians & critics but Victoria was proud of her connection with India & its people. Whether she was ever actually married to John Brown will probably never be known. Wilson sets out the anecdotal evidence for & against. I've always thought they had a genuine friendship. Victoria enjoyed being looked after & cared for & Brown was devoted to her care. He wasn't cowed by her & spoke his mind, which she enjoyed. The Munshi was a more shadowy character. He taught Victoria Hindustani & was given access to documents that he probably should never have seen but he came to symbolise India to the Queen & she refused to believe the stories about his disreputable conduct & dubious associates. The more her children, servants & ministers tried to remove Brown & the Munshi, the more Victoria clung to them.

Victoria's servants, especially her Private Secretaries & doctors, were especially important. A sensible Private Secretary with a sense of humour, like Sir Henry Ponsonby, was vital if the everyday business of government was to continue. Ponsonby knew how to manage the Queen. He had a genuine liking for her & knew how to handle her moods. He was a necessary go-between for the family & politicians. Of her doctors, Sir James Reid was a favourite. He was Scottish (always her first requirement in a physician) & was well-suited to the demanding post of caring for the Queen & her household. Amazingly he never saw the Queen undressed or even in her bed until her final illness. Wilson quotes from Sir James's biography, written by Michaela Reid (she married his grandson) & based on his private papers, so of course, I've ordered a copy. I also have a biography of Henry & Mary Ponsonby by William M Kuhn on the tbr shelves. One book just leads to another...

I enjoyed reading about the Queen's sometimes volatile relationships with her Prime Ministers & her controlling, sometimes truly deplorable behaviour to her children. She could be selfish, unreasonable, petty & ungracious (her last audience with Gladstone is an example of just how ungracious she could be) but I find her completely fascinating. A N Wilson's biography is a joy to read & I really enjoyed Gareth Armstrong's reading of it. If you think you've read enough biographies of Queen Victoria, maybe you should read (or listen to) just one more.

Campaigning for the Vote : Kate Parry Frye's Suffrage Diary - ed Elizabeth Crawford

Kate Parry Frye worked as an organiser for the New Constitutional Society for Women's Suffrage (NCS). In 1911, when the diary begins, Kate was 33 years old. She came from a family whose fortunes had declined. Her father, Frederick, was the owner of a chain of grocery stores & a Liberal MP in the 1890s. Kate's mother, Jane, was connected by marriage to the famous Gilbey family of wine & spirits fame. This connection was useful for Mr Frye's grocery business but, unfortunately, by 1911, the business had all but failed. The family gradually retreated to their home at Bourne End, called The Plat. Eventually they had to rent The Plat out & lived in rented houses until, by 1913, they were forced to sell.

Kate had grown up in a secure middle-class family. She had little formal education, but loved the theatre & took lessons in singing, dancing & recitation. She became an actress & had some limited success, touring in a production of J M Barrie's Quality Street. It was on this tour in 1903 that she met John Collins, & they became engaged. Kate often seems rather lukewarm about John, who was very much in love with Kate although she doesn't seem to care for him nearly as much. Certainly in the diary, she mentions her infatuation with at least one other man. John was a fairly unsuccessful actor & they had a long engagement as they couldn't afford to marry. Kate's family supported her theatrical ambitions &, later, her interest in suffragism. She began as a volunteer for the NCS but was glad to accept a paid position as an organiser in 1913 as the family fortunes declined.

The NCS was one of several organisations dedicated to extending the franchise to women. The most famous was the Women's Social & Political Union (WSPU) founded by the Pankhursts & notorious for their militancy. As the name suggests, the NCS wanted a constitutional solution to the problem & worked on spreading the word & trying to influence politicians to introduce a Parliamentary Bill for women's suffrage. They also canvassed against anti-suffrage politicians. Kate first became interested in suffrage through attending meetings of the Actresses' Franchise League in 1909, the year before the NCS was founded. Kate's job was to travel around England, mostly Kent, Norfolk & Essex, organising meetings, gathering speakers & canvassing for women's suffrage.

Most of Kate's work involved setting up meetings & canvassing & her diary certainly depicts a relentless struggle to gather support. The work involved was considerable as Kate would arrive in a new town, have to find lodgings for herself & maybe speakers, make contact with supporters, find a venue for the meeting, deal with printers producing posters & handbills, find someone to chair the meeting & drum up an audience. She often describes hours spent canvassing but finding few people at home or meeting an unsympathetic response. Sometimes her lodgings are uncomfortable & her colleagues uncongenial. The meetings could be an outstanding success with interesting speakers & a good turnout or dismal failures with insufficient support from the locals or a rowdy crowd of hecklers. Kate is usually optimistic but this outburst, after a meeting at a rich woman's house where the guests only came for the food, is heartfelt,

I am clean off this campaign. Then home to my pic-nic existence with a mood on me one could have cut off in chunks. I suppose it's a mixture of fatigue and homesickness and disappointment. If the work would only go well I would not mind and it would help me put up with my lot. Why must I live in horrid rooms amongst other people's hideous possessions. What am I paying for, shall I ever have done paying - if only something would come out of it, if only I could justify my existence somehow!!!!
Friday October 25th 1912 - Folkestone 33 Coolinge Road

As well as the day to day work of an organiser, Kate took part in some of the great set pieces of the suffrage movement. She marched in the Women's Coronation Procession organised by the WSPU as a demonstration of women's solidarity. It was the biggest such demonstration ever held & was timed for a few days before the coronation of George V. Kate marched with the Actresses' Franchise League & had a wonderful day, culminating in a meeting at the Royal Albert Hall addressed by Mrs Pankhurst. She was a Group Captain & very proud of the honour.

I was the 3rd section behind the third Floral Arch - very pretty it all looked but some of the walkers of the AFL looked very dowdy. But it was all simply magnificent - 70,000 of us, five abreast, and some of the Sections were just wonderful - a real pageant and I enjoyed myself tremendously. ... The end had not left the Embankment before we started the meeting at 8.30 - 7 miles, 1,000 banners 70 bands. We were just behind one and it was quite lovely marching to it. We kept time to it and at least walked well. Several of the onlookers I heard say that ours was the Smartest Section.
Saturday June 17th 1911

Kate also witnessed the funeral procession for Emily Wilding Davison, who was killed when she ran in front of the King's horse at Epsom on Derby Day 1913.

We saw it splendidly at the start until we were driven away from our position and then could not see for the crowds and then we walked right down Buckingham Palace Rd and joined in the procession at the end. It was really most wonderful - the really organised part - groups of women in black with white lilies - in white and in purple - and lots of clergymen and special sort of pall bearers each side of the coffin. She gave her life publicly to make known to the public the demand of Votes for Women - it was only fitting she should be honoured publicly by the comrades.
Saturday June 14th 1913

John Collins had joined the Territorial Army & was in the Essex and Suffolk Royal Garrison Artillery & so was mobilised with his unit on the outbreak of WWI. He & Kate were married on her 37th birthday in January 1915. She resigned from the NCS in 1916 & the remaining diary entries in the book are on suffrage matters - the granting of the franchise in 1918, the first time she voted in 1924 & attending Mrs Pankhurst's funeral in 1928.

Elizabeth Crawford made the decision to edit the diary severely to only include information about Kate's suffrage activities. While I can understand that the book needed a focus, I would have liked a bit more about Kate's personal life outside the movement. Crawford writes linking passages between entries when Kate is on holidays or visiting family but restricts the entries to Kate's activities as an organiser.

Elizabeth Crawford's blog, Woman and her Sphere, is a great resource for information about the suffrage movement. There are links to all the entries she has written about Kate & other suffrage stories as well. Kate (played by Romola Garai) is going to be featured in the ITV series, The Great War, the People's Story.

Elizabeth Crawford has also written a biography of Kate to be published as an ebook in early August (today, in fact), Kate Parry Frye – The Long Life of an Edwardian Actress and Suffragette, which I'm looking forward to reading to find out what happened to Kate after the struggle for women's suffrage was over.
Edited to add : and here it is, just downloaded this very minute!

The Duke's Children - Anthony Trollope

The Duke's Children is the final book in Trollope's Palliser series of novels. It begins with a shock on the very first page, because Glencora, Duchess of Omnium, is dead. Her husband, Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, is devastated & the novel describes how he copes with his bereavement & with his three very determined children.

The Duke is a reserved man, consumed by his political career. He loved Glencora very much, after the difficult start to their marriage, but he barely knows his children at all. He has provided for them in a material sense but doesn't understand them. Eldest son, Plantagenet (but always called Silverbridge after his title), has been sent down from Oxford & declares that he wants to enter Parliament as a Conservative. As the Pallisers have always been Liberals, this wounds his father deeply. The Duke blames Silverbridge's closest friend, Frank Tregear, for his decision. Tregear is from a Cornish gentry family but has no money. Unfortunately, he has fallen in love with Silverbridge's sister, Lady Mary Palliser, & she with him, a match that the Duke absolutely forbids. Middle son, Gerald, is at Cambridge but is caught up in a gambling scandal while still in his teens.

Silverbridge falls in love with Lady Mabel Grex, a distant cousin of both his & Frank Tregear's. Frank & Mabel had been in love but both realised they could not marry as neither had any money. Mabel's father may be a Lord, but he has gambled & squandered his estate so she is practically penniless, although well-bred, beautiful & witty. Mabel is still in love with Frank but determines to marry Silverbridge if he makes her an offer. Unfortunately, her own worst (or maybe best) instincts lead her to let him off the hook when he makes a tentative declaration. He feels slighted &, soon after, falls under the spell of a beautiful American, Isabel Boncassen. However, the Duke has given his approval to Silverbridge's pursuit of Mabel so Silverbridge finds himself avoiding one girl while he pursues another. The Duke, meantime, is favouring Mabel & wondering when Silverbridge will announce their engagement.

Mary, meanwhile, is devastated when her father forbids her marriage to Frank. She agrees to do nothing without her father's permission, but is determined to marry no one else. The Duke can't help but remember Glencora's own passion for Burgo Fitzgerald, & wonder if she would have been happier if she had not been forced into a marriage with a man she didn't love. Mary's situation leads to a rift between the Duke & Marie Finn (formerly Madame Goesler), Glencora's greatest friend, as she treads a fine line between her loyalty to the Duke & helping Mary without becoming estranged from her.

Silverbridge's troubles aren't confined to romance. He becomes involved with a racing set that includes Major Tifto, a man who knows a lot about horses but isn't quite respectable or honest. Silverbridge is led into huge losses at the race track, & scandal when a horse he part owns with the Major is nobbled just before a big race. Silverbridge is also becoming dissatisfied with his political career as he despises the leader of his party, Sir Timothy Beeswax, & finds himself reluctant to support him. The Duke, meanwhile, is in despair. His heir has shown himself to be flighty in love, a gambler who consorts with undesirable people & a Conservative in politics, although he doesn't seem very serious about that. His daughter is stubbornly continuing to love a penniless man while ignoring any eligible suitor who comes her way. He loves his children & wants them to be happy but he comes to realise that the old standards that he has lived by are changing & he must change too.

The Duke's Children is a wonderful book. The Duke is such a lovable man & his bewilderment as his children get into one predicament after another is very poignant. He misses Glencora but also realises that she has contributed to the problems as she approved of Frank Tregear's suit & he sees her wilfulness intensified in Mary. There are painful scenes between the Duke & Mary as she remains resolute & also many comic scenes between the Duke & his sons as they almost seem to speak different languages & almost wilfully misunderstand each other. Silverbridge is a very silly, immature young man but all his difficulties seem to come upon him unawares. He loves & respects his father but is also afraid of disappointing him. He is full of good intentions but doesn't have the strength of character to follow through. He finds himself entangled without knowing how it happened.

Mabel & Isabel are both fascinating characters & much more mature & self-aware than Silverbridge. Mabel knows how much her future depends on a "good" marriage but she is not mercenary enough to take a man she doesn't love. Even as she decides to accept Silverbridge when he asks her, she is determined to be a good wife to him & try to love him. She knows she can be a good wife & can behave as a Countess (& eventually a Duchess) should but her honesty looks set to ruin her chances. Isabel is very aware of her position as an outsider & has enough good sense not to accept Silverbridge's proposal until she is accepted by his family. The Duke may be a Liberal politically but his feelings about family & nobility are very conservative. The Duke's Children is an involving family saga that rounds off the Palliser series in a very satisfying way. And, now that I've finished reading the books, I can get back to the TV series & watch the last three episodes.

The Prime Minister - Anthony Trollope

A few weeks ago, I started watching The Pallisers, the 1970's series based on Trollope's Palliser series of novels. I've had the boxset on my shelves for a very long time but it was a comment by a friend in my online book group that inspired me to make a start. I'm absolutely loving it. I read the first four books in the series a very long time ago & was keeping the final two books, The Prime Minister & The Duke's Children, for best. Not sure why, I probably just wanted them in reserve for that day when I have absolutely nothing to read.

Watching the series brought it all back to me. I remembered all the characters & was surprised how much of the story I remembered. Phineas Finn has always been a favorite of mine & I was always very annoyed by silly Lizzie Eustace & watching the series just reinforced my feelings. It's always a joy to watch a British series from this era & seeing so many favourite actors at an earlier stage of their career. I've especially enjoyed Derek Jacobi as Lord Fawn & Penelope Keith as his bossy sister, Mrs Hittaway. Has she always played bossy characters (Margot in The Good Life, Agatha Raisin on the radio)? Must be that very decisive voice that brooks no argument.

I decided that I didn't want to watch the whole series without having read those final two books so I started reading The Prime Minister when I was only up to Episode 4 or 5. I'm guessing that the episodes based on The Prime Minister begin at Episode 20 so, although I'm now up to Episode 15, I've slowed down my watching & got on with my reading.

As well as being a story of social & political machinations, The Prime Minister is the story of two marriages. One couple we know well, Plantagenet Palliser, now the Duke of Omnium & his wife, the former Lady Glencora MCluskie. From shaky beginnings, the marriage has become one of love & great happiness although it's not without its problems. Glencora is delighted when Plantagenet becomes Prime Minister, even though he heads a coalition government with all the compromises that entails. As Duke of Omnium, Plantagenet sits in the House of Lords & he misses the more robust debate of the House of Commons. He especially misses his former post as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

To be the Prime Minister's wife is the height of Glencora's ambitions & she has fostered his career by becoming a hostess whose parties attract politicians as well as others with influence. Unfortunately Glencora is still as impulsive as ever &, after many years of marriage, still does not understand the deeply strict moral code of her husband. This causes problems when she encourages Ferdinand Lopez to stand for Parliament in the Palliser family seat of Silverbridge against her husband's wishes. Plantagenet is a difficult man & doesn't always appreciate her efforts on his behalf. He dislikes parties & receptions & has to be pushed into making even a token appearance at Glencora's parties. He's not a natural politician & doesn't have the knack of making himself agreeable to his colleagues. He also doubts that he is the right man to be leader & feels that his social standing has given him opportunities that he's unworthy of. Sir Orlando Drought, who is the Leader of the Government in the Commons, is not sympathetic to Plantagenet & this causes a certain paralysis in the Government.

Glencora does finally begin to understand her husband after the scandal she inadvertently causes puts him in a very difficult position as Prime Minister but his love for her never wavers. I love this conversation between Glencora & her closest friend, Marie Finn (formerly Madame Max Goesler).

"If you and I were hatching treason against him in the dark, and chance had brought him there, he would stop his ears with his fingers. He is all trust, even when he knows that he is being deceived. He is honour complete from head to foot. Ah, it was before you knew me that i tried him the hardest. I never could quite tell you that story, and I won't try it now, but he behaved like a god. I could never tell him what I felt, - but I felt it."
"You ought to love him."
"I do; - but what's the use of it? He is a god, but I am not a goddess; - and then, though he is a god, he is a dry, silent, uncongenial and uncomfortable god. It would have suited me much better to have married a sinner. But then the sinner that I would have married was so irredeemably a scapegrace."

Emily Wharton is the daughter of a wealthy lawyer with family connections to the landed gentry in Herefordshire. She has fallen in love with Ferdinand Lopez, a financial speculator of unknown family & obscure origins. Emily's father does not approve of Lopez & wants Emily to marry a family friend, Arthur Fletcher. Arthur loves Emily but she is determined to marry Lopez although she will not disobey her father. Mr Fletcher's objections to Lopez centre on his background which may be Jewish or may be Portuguese but which boil down to a prejudice against him that may be unreasonable but can't be overcome. Eventually, however, he is forced to give way & Emily marries Lopez.

Almost immediately, Emily realises that she has made a dreadful mistake. Lopez loves her but he also needs her fortune to prop up his very speculative business dealings. He was too careful to antagonise Mr Wharton by asking for a settlement before the marriage but, on their honeymoon, he begins to press Emily to ask her father for money. Emily realises that her husband's moral values are very different to her own. As Lopez's speculations become more entangled, he realises that no matter how rich he becomes or if he succeeds in entering Parliament, he will never be accepted in Society because of his origins.

In a sense he was what is called a gentleman. He knew how to speak, and how to look, how to use a knife and fork, how to dress himself and how to walk. But he had not the faintest notion of the feelings of a gentleman.

The Lopez marriage is the most compelling part of the story. The feints & stratagems that Lopez goes through to keep up appearances while Emily becomes more & more unhappy & frightened of the future are fascinating to watch. Mrs Parker, the wife of Lopez's partner, is one of Trollope's most sympathetic minor characters. She is fierce in her determination to keep her family together as it becomes obvious that her husband has been Lopez's dupe. She visits Emily at her father's house when the bubble has burst & her dignity is heartbreaking as she is forced to ask for help.

Emily is a pitiable but also a very frustrating woman. As her relationship with her husband fractures, she finds herself thinking guiltily about her old love, Arthur Fletcher. When her marriage ends in tragedy, she blames herself for the trouble & scandal brought on her father. She drapes herself in black & seems determined to spend the rest of her life in gloomy atonement for her mistake in marrying Lopez when everyone advised her not to. As her brother Everett says to her, "you make us all unhappy when we look at you." & I could only agree with him. I admit I was very tired of Emily by the end of the book but Trollope brings her story to a very satisfactory ending.

Well, on to the final book in the Palliser series, The Duke's Children. I'm looking forward to watching more of the TV series now that I've finished reading The Prime Minister as Stuart Wilson, one of my favourite actors, plays Ferdinand Lopez. Do you remember him as Vronsky in the 1970s series of Anna Karenina? Another favourite book & favourite TV series.

Asquith Diaries

I'm very tempted by this book at the moment, Margot Asquith's Great War Diaries. I haven't succumbed just yet as I've bought a few books lately & really don't need any more. Margot was the second wife of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith who was PM from 1908-1916. Margot, therefore, was right there at the centre of politics at this crucial time.

This morning, as I was dusting the study, I was thinking about Margot & remembered that I had an Asquith diary on the tbr shelves. Lady Cynthia was the stepdaughter-in-law of Margot, being married to the PM's son, Herbert. I bought this second hand copy years ago &, on opening it up at random, was very encouraged to see this entry from March 11th 1915,

A lot more snow fell. The weather is most depressing. I frowsted all morning. I have been re-reading Jane Eyre with tremendous enjoyment. I still find Rochester irresistible ... I suppose I ought to have outgrown his charm.

I like Cynthia already! This edition was published in 1968, with an Introduction by the novelist L P Hartley. I was intrigued by this comment from the blurb,

She wrote with the bewildering fullness of a still-leisured age - and very, very frankly, so that even now many excisions have been made for reasons other than length, before it was possible to publish this selection.

What has been left out? Has a fuller "selection" ever been published in the 46 years since first publication?? I must investigate! Wouldn't it be interesting to read these two diaries side by side as they cover practically the same period? Can you tell I'm talking myself into making a little purchase? Don't worry, if I succumb, I'll confess all.

Selected Letters - Sydney Smith

Sydney Smith was a 19th century clergyman who is probably best known today, if he's known at all, for his letters. He was born in 1771 & educated with his brother at Winchester College (two other brothers went to Eton). He became a clergyman & lived in Edinburgh for some years where he was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review, an influential periodical on literature, politics & social issues. even after leaving Edinburgh, Smith continued to contribute reviews & articles. He then moved to London, becoming well-known as a preacher & in society. He held the living at Foston-le-Clay in Yorkshire for many years, later moving to a living in Taunton near Bristol & later becoming a canon of St Paul's. He was happily married to Catherine & was a fond father to his daughter, Saba & son, Douglas.

If I was trying to describe Sydney Smith, the words good humoured & liberal come to mind. He had a genius for friendship. He wrote regularly to Francis Jeffreys & John Murray in Edinburgh. When he moved to London, he was introduced by his brother, Robert (known as Bobus), to Lord & Lady Holland, the great Whig political couple, where he become a frequent guest. He kept up a correspondence with both after he moved to Yorkshire. His letters are always respectful but never obsequious or servile. He is honest in his opinions & always interested in their family & friends.

Smith never received the preferments his friends believed him entitled to. He was a liberal Whig in an age of conservative Tory government. Church appointments were a matter of patronage & influence & Smith's friends never had the influence that would have helped him to high office. I don't see him as a particularly ambitious man, though. When he went to Foston, there had been no resident clergyman there for 150 years. He set about rebuilding the vicarage, built up the farm that came with the living & was a much-loved pastor to his parishioners. He was allowed to spend a few weeks away from his parish every year & went to London where he revelled in society & enjoyed the intellectual stimulation that he missed at home. His personality is particularly attractive to modern readers because he espoused many causes that weren't mainstream at the time but have become so. He was anti-slavery, he was in favour of Catholic emancipation & his inclinations were liberal in social matters while always being a devout Anglican.

In later life, he moved to a living near Taunton &, during a brief period of Tory government, he was appointed as a Canon of St Paul's which meant he could spend more time in London.

I think Lord Grey will give me some preferment if he stays in long enough; but the Upper Parsons live vindictively, and evince their aversion to a Whigg ministry by an improved health. The Bishop of Ely has the rancor to recover after three paralytic strokes, and the Dean of Lichfield to be vigorous at 82 -  and yet these are the men who are called Christians. Letter to J A Murray January 24th 1831

His father & brother died, leaving him enough money to live comfortably. Apart from the usual ills of old age, & the death of his son, Douglas, in 1829, he was a contented man by the end of his life.

The best way to demonstrate Sydney Smith's personality, though, is not to try to describe him but to quote his letters. This description of himself in 1805 held true throughout his life,

You ask me about my prospects. I think I shall long remain as I am. I have no powerful friends. I belong to no party, I do not cant, I abuse canting everywhere, I am not conciliating, and I have not talents enough to force my way without these laudable and illaudable auxiliaries. This is as true a picture of my situation as I can give you. In the mean time I lead not an unhappy life, much otherwise, and am thankful for my share of good. Letter to Francis Jeffrey July 4th 1805

Here he advises a friend how to improve her low spirits. I can only agree with all 20 of his precepts but here are just a few,

1st. Live as well as you dare. 3rd. Amusing books. 6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you. 8th. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely - they are always worse for dignified concealment.12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion not likely to end in active benevolence. 15th. make the room where you commonly sit, gay and pleasant. 17th. Don't be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice. Letter to Lady Georgiana Morpeth February 16th 1820

He was popular in literary as well as political circles.

Dear Moore,
I have a breakfast of philosophers tomorrow at ten punctually. Muffins and metaphysics; crumpets and contradiction. Will you come?
Letter to Thomas Moore November 12th 1841

My dear Dickens,
I accept your obliging invitation conditionally. If I am invited by any man of greater genius than yourself, or one by whose works I have been more completely interested, I will repudiate you and dine with the more splendid phenomenon of the two.
Ever yours sincerely,
Sydney Smith     Letter to Charles Dickens May 14th 1842

However, my favourite quote comes from his Memoirs,

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

Rustle of spring

Lovely sunny morning & Abby was in the garden feeling all the joys of spring. Not long after I took these photos (& put out some washing) black clouds appeared & we had a shower but nothing too drastic. Just typical spring weather. Abby was actually licking the grass, which is better than eating it, I suppose, which just leads to her throwing up the grass later on the only square of carpet in the house.

It's Election Day in Australia & I was out early this morning voting & doing a little shopping. Abby & I will be glued to the telly tonight watching the ABC's election coverage. It looks like a tight result so it could be a late night. Chocolate & pots of tea will help us through it.

I finished reading I Capture the Castle during the week. I wasn't too old for it after all & I'll post my review tomorrow. I've started reading Decca : the Letters of Jessica Mitford which I'm enjoying very much. The only problem is that it's a heavy book & my neck & wrists can't hold it up for long periods. If I could rest it on my lap this wouldn't be a problem but Abby has other ideas about what laps are for (she's just come into the study & jumped up on my lap now to remind me). So, when Decca becomes too heavy, I swap over to Death of an Expert Witness by P D James which I'm rereading after many years in honour of P D James's 90th birthday.