Novel 103: Charlotte Yonge, The Trial (1864)

 
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, A Family Group

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, A Family Group

 

A young man is falsely accused of murder.

This is the sequel to The Daisy Chain, of eight years before (Novel 053).  Here Yonge moves beyond the domestic, including not only a murder but also an American episode, in which a few of her characters seek prosperity in an Indiana swamp while the Civil War rages in the distance.

“With the old Pre-Raffaelite touch Miss Yonge paints her portraits, quietly, faithfully, and as completely as she can.” Reader, June 18, 1864

Yonge “understands how to work the machinery of a large family—to show how the different members act and react on each other—in a probable and calculable manner.” Saturday Review, August 20, 1864

“In these days of exciting fiction, it is difficult to sustain public interest without doing violence to the more refined tastes of educated readers.  Much insight into human nature is needed, and no small amount of artistic power.  These desiderata are well supplied by the authoress of this story, and those who remember and admired her elegant style of writing will not be disappointed in her new book.” Manchester Guardian, September 6, 1864

“No one can deny that this lady draws the inner and outer life of a certain limited class of characters with a truth and reality almost unrivalled, or that her pictures of struggling middle-class interiors are finished with the fidelity of a Dutch painting.” Westminster Review, October, 1864

Download this week’s novel:

v.1  https://archive.org/details/trialmorelinksd03yonggoog

v.2 https://archive.org/details/trialmorelinksd01yonggoog

Novel 101: A.J. Barrowcliffe, Normanton (1862)

 
William Fraser Garden, Houghton Mill

William Fraser Garden, Houghton Mill

 

In a country village, two cousins both love the miller’s daughter.

Albert Julius Mott (?-1870) wrote three novels between 1856 and 1862 under the pseudonym A.J. Barrowcliffe.  This, the last, has an intricate plot which runs its course over five days in a small village.

“The author . . . is able to breathe life into the creatures of his imagination, so that they perform his bidding naturally, and do not require the visible presence of his guiding hand.  He has a thorough sympathy with nature. . . .  And he has a keen insight into the complex machinery of the human mind. . . .  Moreover, he possesses no small share of humour.” London Review, December 20, 1862

The author succeeds in “the production of a minutely finished and faithful picture of English country life. . . .  Mr. Barrowcliffe’s story is quite sufficiently interesting, and is developed with considerable skill; but certainly the most noticeable point in his book is the extreme polish and smoothness of his style.” Spectator, December 27, 1862

“An honest purpose, a graceful style, and a certain novelty in construction, make this a very good story.” Examiner, April 4, 1863.

Download this week’s novel:

http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_0000000451B6#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-617%2C-130%2C2673%2C2592

Novel 100: Mary Louisa Molesworth, Leona (1892)

 
James Sant, A Thorn Amidst the Roses

James Sant, A Thorn Amidst the Roses

 

Two cousins grow interested in the same man.

Here, to follow last week’s Mary Molesworth, is the Victorian period’s other Mary Molesworth, Mary Louisa Molesworth (1838-1921), a prolific author mainly of children’s books, though she also wrote novels for adults, like this one—a quiet story based on plausible, entertaining misunderstandings of character and purpose.

“It is a very enjoyable book. The characters of the young men and girls who are the principal persons in the little narrative drama are, in the main, admirably delineated; . . . and the conversation, which is an important element in a tale of this kind, is specially excellent.” Academy, October 15, 1892

“The characters are well drawn, the incidents probable and well led up to, and the story interesting.  But the strong point of the work, after all, lies in the character drawing, especially in the subtle delineation of shades of diversity in disposition, amongst a family where all the members are chiefly remarkable for their amiability and worth.” Westminster Review, July 1893

Download this week’s novel:

http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000033A32

Novel 098: Elizabeth Stone, Mr. Dalton's Legatee, a Very Nice Woman (1850)

 
William Powell Frith, The Toilet

William Powell Frith, The Toilet

 

A disobedient daughter’s disinheritance leads to the enrichment of a socially ambitious woman.

In addition to historical works on such subjects as needlework, Elizabeth Stone (1803-1881) wrote five novels.  Here, the bad characters are excellent, especially the “very nice woman,” and the plot is amusing if you don’t mind a final pile of coincidence impressive even by contemporary standards.

“The apeing of fashion by vulgar people, the wretchedness it occasions to themselves, and the laughter it provokes in others, have ever been a favourite . . . theme with novelists . . .; but seldom have we seen it accomplished with more humour and truth than in the novel before us. . . .  Always vigorous, the writing is at times positively brilliant.  The descriptions are remarkably graphic, yet drawn without effort. . . .  The personages . . . are all . . . distinctly outlined, and most of them are manifestly sketches after nature.  Mrs. Stone has a keen observation, and a quick sense of the ludicrous.” Critic, August 1, 1850

“Although ‘Mr. Dalton’s Legatee’ properly belongs to a class of books for which we have no particular affection—the fashionable novels—yet it is one of the best of its kind. The plot is intricate and interesting, and the characters amusing and well sustained.” American Whig Review, October, 1850

Download this week’s novel:

http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=oxfaleph014517497&context=L&vid=SOLO&search_scope=LSCOP_ALL&tab=local&lang=en_US

Crossword 097: Nondairy Substitutes

 
John Callcott Horsley, Youth and Age

John Callcott Horsley, Youth and Age

 

Okay, so it’s the same joke four times.  So what?  It’s a good joke.  And the fourth iteration (64 Across) is not just a joke, it’s also a wry comment on the human condition.

Download this week’s crossword:

097-Nondairy-Substitutes.puz

097-Nondairy-Substitutes.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

097 Nondairy Substitutes

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A crossword of mine appeared yesterday, Friday, September 27, in The Los Angeles Times (and The Chicago Tribune, The Houston Chronicle, The San Francisco Chronicle, etc.)

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A crossword of mine will appear Wednesday, October 2, in the Wall Street Journal.

Crossword 096: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap

 
Stanhope Alexander Forbes, Feeding the Pigs

Stanhope Alexander Forbes, Feeding the Pigs

 

Speaking of pork, here is one of my favorite passages from the great Jonathan Swift, explaining the popularity of satire—and by the way, much of the social media of our own time:

“There is a problem in an ancient author, why dedications, and other bundles of flattery, run all upon stale musty topics, without the smallest tincture of any thing new; . . . whereas there is very little satire, which has not something in it untouched before. The defects of the former, are usually imputed to the want of invention among those, who are dealers in that kind; but, I think, with a great deal of injustice; the solution being easy and natural; for, the materials of panegyric, being very few in number, have been long since exhausted. For, as health is but one thing, and has been always the same, whereas diseases are by thousands, beside new and daily additions; so, all the virtues that have been ever in mankind, are to be counted upon a few fingers; but their follies and vices are innumerable, and time adds hourly to the heap. Now the utmost a poor poet can do, is to get by heart a list of the cardinal virtues, and deal them with his utmost liberality to his hero, or his patron: he may ring the changes as far as it will go, and vary his phrase till he has talked round: but the reader quickly finds it is all pork, with a little variety of sauce.”

Download this week’s crossword:

096-As-Ye-Sow-So-Shall-Ye-Reap.puz

096-As-Ye-Sow-So-Shall-Ye-Reap.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

096 As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap

Novel 096: Will Payne, The Story of Eva (1901)

 
Alson Skinner Clark, The Coffee House

Alson Skinner Clark, The Coffee House

 

Having abandoned her adulterous husband, a young woman makes a life for herself in Chicago.

Will Payne (1865-1954) wrote nine novels between 1896 and 1929.  The description in the first half of the novel of a woman’s working life in turn-of-the-century Chicago is especially interesting.

“It has been said that Chicago is fatal to any imaginative gifts, and that no novel of that city has ever risen above mediocrity.  An exception must be made in favor of a new novel of strong realism which pictures several phases of Chicago life with remarkable vividness and yet contains much of the spiritual quality that relieves its materialism. . . . The story as a whole is admirably constructed and true to life. . . .  In all the passages that bear on the working girls of Chicago the author shows singular closeness of observation, mingled with much sympathy.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 30, 1901

“The book is readable, and interesting to any one who wishes to hear about the way of life of the middle classes of Chicago.” Spectator, August 10, 1901

“Mr. Payne’s writing is not of the kind which arrests or startles.  Rather it compels attention to detail, to a word here, a phrase there; but the portrait which is left at the end is whole and in proportion, while the background is filled in with due regard to the high lights which the painter wishes to emphasise.” Saturday Review, September 14, 1901

Download this week’s novel:

https://books.google.com/books?id=yAVFAQAAMAAJ&dq=will%20payne%20story%20of%20eva&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q=will%20payne%20story%20of%20eva&f=false

Crossword 095: Anntheme

 
James Sant, Caroline, 3rd Countess of Mount Edgcumbe with Her Two Youngest Children, Charles and Ernestine

James Sant, Caroline, 3rd Countess of Mount Edgcumbe with Her Two Youngest Children, Charles and Ernestine

 

Today is my beloved mother's birthday.  Alert solvers might be able, on the basis of this puzzle’s title and theme answers, to guess her name. 

Download this week’s crossword:

095-Anntheme.puz

095-Anntheme.pdf

Solve this week's crossword online:

095 Anntheme

Pointing Hand.png

A crossword of mine will appear Thursday, September 19, in the Wall Street Journal

Novel 095: Mrs. A.B. Church, Measure for Measure (1862)

 
Edward John Poynter, A Day Dream

Edward John Poynter, A Day Dream

 

A young lady is tormented by a secret sorrow.

About Mrs. A.B. Church nothing is known except that she wrote four novels between 1860 and 1881, of which this is the second.  The arbitrary mystification at the beginning is a bit annoying, but the novel improves greatly as it goes on; the portrait of the villain who appears in the latter half is especially good.

“Without being a striking story, ‘Measure for Measure’ is pleasing and interesting, and there is a refinement about the author’s style which might recommend an even less remarkable production.” Morning Post, September 3, 1862

“This is a novel with a clever plot, skilfully and lightly telling its tale through the sort of conversation that a woman finds and makes . . . when she forms part of society in an English village near a small country town.” Examiner, September 6, 1862

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/measureformeasur01chur

v.2 https://archive.org/details/Measureformeasur02churBwFIXED

v.3 https://archive.org/details/measureformeasur03chur

Crossword 094: Ear Tags

 
William Powell Frith, The New Earrings

William Powell Frith, The New Earrings

 

Poking holes in our ears so as to dangle ornamental objects from them—isn't it a little ugly and foolish, when you come to think about it?  Attaching metal things that emit radio frequencies to the ears of livestock so as to keep track of them is at least practical.  Has anyone thought of combining these in a movie, involving a creepy stalker and a gift of earrings? “The Piercing,” it might be called.  If you’re a movie producer and you’d like to buy an option on the idea, let me know.

Download this week’s crossword:

094-Ear-Tags.puz

094-Ear-Tags.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

094 Ear Tags