George William Joy, A Dinner of Herbs
Six spices may not make for much of a rack, but at least you can find the one you’re looking for, assuming it’s one of those six.
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Novel 012: Catherine Gore, Mrs. Armytage (1836)
John Lavery, Elizabeth Welsh
A proud, rich widow seeks to control her children.
Catherine Grace Frances Gore, née Moody (1799-1861), one of the most popular and esteemed novelists of the early Victorian period, wrote over 50 novels between 1824 and 1858. Mrs. Armytage dates from the year before Victoria’s accession; its compelling and original main characters more than make up for some implausible plotting.
The novel provides “a capital and very agreeable picture of society in its various shades,—the trifing, scheming, laughter-and-scandal-loving exclusives; the respectable, unpretending, domestic nobility; the smaller Yorkshire squires; the family oddities which grow up in a remote provincial neighbourhood. Most of the characters too are exceedingly well drawn,—effective yet without the exaggeration in which a more vulgar artist would have indulged.” The style is “light, rapid, sparkling, and pointed, the combined result of natural wit, much observation of life, and considerable practice in writing.” Spectator, July 9, 1836
Gore excels “in depth as well as nicety of observation, in the various portraiture of manners, and in the connecting with peculiar force minute traces of artifical character with strong movements of natural passion.” Examiner, July 24, 1836
The novel shows “acute penetration into the motives by which individuals and even whole classes of society are actually though not openly impelled. . . . The character of Mrs. Armytage is conceived with delicacy and discrimination, developed and sustained with admirable consistency and effect.” Morning Post, August 1, 1836
We “wish that Mrs. Gore could change her sex, and become M.P. for some borough . . . for she displays all the brilliant elements of one in every page. . . . Her information is abundant, her shrewdness wonderful, her tact excellent, and her perceptions of character delicate, and happy in the extreme.” Court Magazine and Monthly Critic, February, 1837
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v.1 https://archive.org/details/mrsarmytageorfem01gore
Crossword 011: Oxymoronism
Henry Courtney Selous, The Love Letter
Today’s painting illustrates the predicament described in the puzzle’s entry for 49 Across—if you interpret the girl’s expression as conveying a kind of numb incredulity.
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Novel 011: James Payn, Thicker Than Water
William Maw Egley, Omnibus Life in London
A proud but poor young lady endures the misbehavior of her various rich and eccentric patrons.
James Payn (1830-1898) wrote some 60 novels between 1857 and 1898. This one has an intricate plot and a wide range of characters; its modernism is shown by the heroine’s resolve at one point to make her living with a typewriter.
“The writer’s thorough knowledge of the world enables him to lay bare the motives that prompt the actions of his personages, chosen in the most opposite classes of society. . . . His characters are strikingly natural, and the individuality of each and all of them stands out in bold relief.” Morning Post, September 10, 1883
It is set “among remarkable or original people, who meet with a variety of remarkable and more or less original incidents, as adventures come to the adventurous; while the scenes of the story are perpetually shifted, from town to country . . . and from the fashionable end of London to the extreme East.” Saturday Review, October 6, 1883
“Mr. Payn is as gay, as sprightly, as diverting as ever”; his story is “well imagined and well told enough to be interesting from beginning to end. . . . Its personages are all of them natural and are many of them new; they are presented with a great deal of insight and vivacity; they have a flavour of reality which is refreshing in no mean degree.” Academy, October 27, 1883
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v.1 https://archive.org/details/thickerthanwater01paynj
Crossword 010: Multiple Choice
John Collier, Eve
Who says mortal terror is not an appropriate theme for a light-hearted crossword puzzle?
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Novel 010: Anonymous, Eva Desmond; or, Mutation (1858)
Arthur Hughes, A Passing Cloud
A virtuous but poor young lady falls in love with a man whose family wants him to marry money.
Nothing is known about the author of this novel which, with a large cast of lively characters and much circumstantial detail, tells a story of what might be called Providential revenge.
“There is a certain air of actual life, marks of observation, traces of personal experience and investigation, and a power of pourtraying things and people . . . which would have been graphic were it not for the dream-like air of unreality." Athenaeum, September 18, 1858
The novel has a “felicitous closeness of observation, and a fluency as well as vigour of style.” Spectator, September 25, 1858
“A work of uncommon merit. Its construction is admirable; for, although the story is intricate” and each of its “vast crowd of personages is made to preserve...a distinct...personality,” still “the reader is never suffered to lose sight of . . . the central object of the plot, the heroine of the story.” Critic, September 25, 1858
"Among recent fictions we know of none having a stronger claim on our commendation . . . for a freshness and sweetness that breathe of the heather of the Irish mountains. We know not that we have ever made acquaintance in the realms of fiction with a more truly fascinating person” than Eva Desmond. Eclectic Review, November, 1858
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v.1 https://archive.org/details/evadesmondormut00desmgoog
v. 2 https://archive.org/details/evadesmondormut01desmgoog
v.3 https://archive.org/details/evadesmondormut02desmgoog
Crossword 009: Making Mischief
Frederick Goodall, Puritan and Cavalier
I admit it—I consulted a thesaurus.
If, like me, you dislike cross-referenced crossword clues, I will assume your gratitude for my resolutely unrelated clues to 12 Down and 56 Across.
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Novel 009: David Christie Murray, Hearts (1883)
Henry John Yeend King, Milking Time
A young gentleman seeking success in music and in love is undermined by a false friend and defended by a true one.
David Christie Murray (1847-1907) wrote some 30 novels between 1880 and 1907. Here he sets out to disprove the claim of an “American writer of fiction” (attacked in his preface) that “all the stories have been told” with an involved, and involving, plot.
“The interest of the story is well sustained.” Academy, June 6, 1883
The villain’s “picture is drawn with remarkable skill”; the plot “is good throughout, and towards the end, where the action becomes more rapid, rises to a high level of merit”; the author provides “acute observation of life” that is “both vigorous and just.” Spectator, June 9, 1883
“The novel is bright and readable.” British Quarterly Review, July 1883
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v. 1 https://archive.org/details/heartsnovel01murr
v. 2 https://archive.org/details/heartsnovel02murr
v.3 https://archive.org/details/heartsnovel03murr
Crossword 008: Self-Assertion
John Collier, The Minx
Last week’s humility didn’t last. But as crossword favorite Lao-Tse says somewhere (or was it Lao-Tzu?), true humility is proven by nothing so clearly as unmerited and unshakable self-regard.
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Novel 008: Margaret Oliphant, Phoebe, Junior (1876)
William Logsdail, An Early Victorian
A genteel young woman manages the social difficulties of her residence with her tradesman grandfather.
This is the sequel to Oliphant’s Salem Chapel, recommended last week. It’s a memorable representation of external social conflict, internal moral conflict, and the relation between them
It is “fuller than usual” of Oliphant’s “special powers,—her keen insight into a variety of feminine character—the able bourgeoise—her shrewd observation of English middle-class life, and her restrained, satirical humour. It betrays, too, what we had scarcely expected to find, a capacity for depicting scenes of almost tragical emotion without failure, and without . . . melodrama.” Spectator, June 17, 1876
Oliphant “finds an easy amusement in bringing together by the ears men of different religious creeds and professions, and subduing them to uniformity by their weaknesses. . . . Even the mischief-makers and villains essential to the story are not so much worse than their neighbours as more uncomfortable to themselves and to the people about them.” Saturday Review, July 22, 1876
Phoebe is “one of the finest and most finished portraits ever drawn by Mrs. Oliphant. . . . There is something exceedingly subtle about this lady’s female characters.” Contemporary Review, March 1877
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v.1 https://archive.org/details/phoebejuniorlast01olip
Crossword 007: Self Effacement
John Collier, Lady Godiva
After last week’s self-indulgence I try here to show a little humility.
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Novel 007: Margaret Oliphant, Salem Chapel (1863)
George Goodwin Kilburne, In Church
A sincere, idealistic, highly educated dissenting minister is troubled by the bullying interference of his low-bred, gossiping congregation.
Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897) wrote more than 100 novels between 1849 and 1897. This is the first of the “Chronicles of Carlingford,” five novels set in the same provincial city; it is the first of two featuring the Dissenters in that city. Its vivid portrayal of a conflicted character is somewhat marred by a melodramatic subplot. The sequel will appear next week.
“This book will take a permanent place in English literature. . . . The literary wealth of the book consists in the delineation of the Salem Chapel ‘connection,’ its obstructive relation to the effervescing life of the young minister, and the diplomatic depth of worldly wisdom which it develops on critical emergencies in his pious and devoted mother” whose character is “an etching of marvelous delicacy and art, with every line and shadow separately touched in.” As to another main character, a low-bred deacon, “Through all the vulgarity of its surface there is so much genial strength and breadth, so much vulgar manliness, so much intelligence in the shopocratic shrewdess, so much true mettle behind the stratum of butter and bacon, such a liberal feeling” that he becomes “a figure of more true dignity...than the young minister itself.” Spectator, February 14, 1863
“The humour which sketches individual characters and enters into the nice individualities and idiosyncracies; the occasional bitter and burning revolt against the ordinations of Providence in the mysteries of life; the clever delineations, especially of chapel ways and manner” are all praiseworthy. Eclectic Review, March, 1863
The novel shows “the weakness of enthusiasm, refinement, and mere well-meaning, in contact with the vulgar realities of every-day life.” National Review, March 1863
“In the painting of really good people, and of the thoroughly wicked, she fails; but her descriptions of well-meaning men and women, not very good and not very bad, are excellent.” Examiner, November 5, 1864
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Crossword 006: Oenology
John Collier, A Glass of Wine with Caesar Borgia
A common crossword genre is the hidden-word puzzle: some word or set of related words is enclosed in common phrases, “stale,” for example, in “first alert” (clue: “Smoke alarm brand”). Fun stuff. But I prefer to enclose words in startling new phrases created not to hide those words, but to tax my ingenuity for clues that make sense of them, “amusing,” for example, in “hippopotamus in-group” (clue: “Semi-aquatic jungle clique”). It’s a matter of taste. In this puzzle I may have gone too far, however.
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Novel 006 Elizabeth Anna Hart, Wilfred's Widow (1883)
Edward Killingworth Johnson, The Young Widow
A close-knit family, mourning the death of its eldest hope in Australia, take in his widow, eager to excuse her odd manners and behavior.
Elizabeth Anna Hart (1822-1886), also known as Fanny Wheeler Hart, published six novels and two narrative poems between 1869 and 1883. Wilfred’s Widow is a light-hearted social comedy with a memorable anti-heroine.
It is “one of the few original novels that have lately appeared. The idea of the story is fresh, and the central character is drawn with considerable strength.” Morning Post, March 1, 1883
“A thoroughly amusing book, the interest of which carries the reader on through every page of a sufficiently brief story.” Spectator, March 3, 1883
It “shows a good deal of that quiet humour in which women...so often excel. . . . The style is bright and simple throughout, without any affectation of cleverness, and the characters appear as clearly as if they had been forced to unfold themselves in whole chapters of self-analysis.” Athenaeum, March 10, 1883
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v.1 http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/600067016.pdf
v.2 http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/600067017.pdf
Crossword 005: A Minus
Talbot Hughes, A Nun Embroidering Fabric
Repetition is comforting.
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Novel 005: Noell Radecliffe, The Secret History of a Household (1855)
Walter Dendy Sadler, Girl on a Bench
A virtuous wife deals with the appalling misbehavior of her arrogant husband.
Noell Radecliffe published eight novels between 1854 and 1870. Nothing else is known about her (him?), and yet her (his?) works have great emotional power and psychological subtlety. In The Secret History of a Household, she (he?) evokes a nightmarish world where well-meaning innocence is inevitably encompassed and defeated by selfishness and cruelty.
“Every lover of the beautiful and the true in woman will sympathise with the wife.” Morning Post, February 15, 1855
“With much talent, and the power to interest and carry along the reader, it is as bad and pernicious a book as we ever read. . . . There is a total want of all faculty to discriminate between right and wrong.” Athenaeum, March 17, 1855
“This work evinces no diminution of [Radecliffe’s] power of delineation and . . . faculty of invention. . . . Of the general portraiture we must say that it is strong—rather strong than flattering; and of the general tone of the pictures of genteel life, that it is dark—more dark than pleasing.” Morning Chronicle, April 4, 1855
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Crossword 004 Plutocratic Pastimes
William Holyoake, In the Front Row at the Opera
The rule-bound, rigidly symmetrical crossword form cries out, I think, for utter nonsense. This is a modest tribute to the nonsense poems of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll.
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Novel 004: M.E. Braddon, The Doctor's Wife (1864)
Robert James Gordon, Woman Reading
A young woman, addled by overindulgence in novels, marries a good but unimaginative doctor.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) wrote over 60 novels between 1861 and 1900. In The Doctor’s Wife she reflects wittily and ruefully on her craft and its effects.
“Miss Braddon has displayed quite unexpected power, that she can create a female character ordinary and yet bizarre, analyze her emotions with delicate skill, and display her action in incidents each of which is a surprise, yet on reflection is pronounced by the reader accurate and natural.” Spectator, October 22, 1864
“Isabel’s is an original character, and it is excellently drawn.” London Review, October 22, 1864
The heroine’s character is “wholly consistent from first to last, and artistically true to the type of human nature which the novelist has set herself to portray.” Saturday Review, November 5, 1864
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v.1 https://books.google.com/books?id=BkPQAAAAMAAJ
v.2 https://books.google.com/books?id=B0TQAAAAMAAJ
v.3 https://books.google.com/books?id=RUTQAAAAMAAJ
“Stereotyped” 1 vol. ed. (Archive.org)
Crossword 003: Broken Ranks
Jerry Barrett, Queen Victoria's First Visit to her Wounded Soldiers
Only corporal punishment could improve this puzzle.
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Novel 003: Charlotte Yonge, Heartsease (1854)
William Henry Margetson, Lady with Pansies
A naive young girl marries into a difficult family and wins her way by her virtue.
Charlotte Yonge (1823-1901) wrote some 60 novels between 1844 and 1900. No novelist has ever created characters more lifelike, original, and fully individualized than Yonge’s.
“One of the loveliest, sweetest, and most attractive creations that ever sprung to life at the poet’s bidding.” Fraser’s Magazine, November, 1854
“There is ... minute etching of incident and character, and every page repays the reader, by disclosing some trait of interest essential to the development of the story. The interest lies chiefly in the details of the daily life and daily trials of the different characters. These are drawn with considerable vigour.... ‘Heartsease’ is the most true looking story we have read for a long time.” Athenaeum, November 18, 1854
“The characters are exceedingly well drawn and distinguished... The book, although not of the intense kind, bears evidence of very keen observation, and very true and careful thought, and as a work of art, must rank very high.” Putnam’s, February 1855
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