Novel 139: Eleanor Eden, Dumbleton Common (1867)
A naive middle class girl marries a fashionable young man.
Eleanor Eden (1826-1879), niece to Emily Eden (see Novel 036), wrote several children’s novels in addition to this one for adults. Its troubled-marriage plot is supplemented with a pleasant description of life in a village outside London.
“‘Dumbleton Common’ is a charmingly pleasant book; it is full of genial kindheartedness, and there is a thoroughly well-bred tone throughout. The story is as slight as can hold together; but every individual in it has a distinctive character, and is made of flesh and blood, with a reasonable soul to match. . . . There is much skill and lightness of hand evinced in the many characters that pass before the reader; for though the incidents are slightly drawn, the personages are numerous.” Athenaeum, March 9, 1867
“The Hon. Eleanor Eden, like the Hon. Emily Eden, has a perfect command of that light, graceful, easy style which is the nearest literary approach to the pleasant chat and gentle raillery of the best English society. . . . Dumbleton Common, like The Semi-Detached House, is a most graceful and lively picture of a little society. . . . There is no sketch that is not lively, and not a false stroke of either sentiment or tone from the beginning to the end of the little story.” Spectator, March 16, 1867
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