Wednesday 26 February 2014

Read in 2014 - 5: Henrietta's Wish

Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823 - 1901) was an immensely prolific author, producing around 90 novels, plus writing or editing 150 biographies, textbooks, (natural) history books and translations. Many of her books were bestsellers in their day, and apparently she "is cited more times than Jane Austen in the Oxford English Dictionary’s most quoted female sources (sixth overall, with George Eliot top of the list)." (I found this information, as well as pictures of Miss Yonge, her house and the room where most of her writing took place, here. She is said to have been held in high esteem by Anthony Trollope and Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf and Barbara Pym, among others.



"Henrietta's Wish; or, Domineering" was published in 1853 and is very much a typical example of Victorian girls' literature. If you can't stand constant reference to Christian morals, you better not read this book. But if you like family stories about friendship, and how different members of a family deal with changes in their lives, and don't mind the (to our ears) rather silly-sounding dialogues that sometimes go on a bit, you'll probably enjoy this book. (Mine was of course a free kindle-edition.)

In short, Henrietta and her twin brother Frederick grow up fatherless, but with no financial worries. Their mother was widowed one week after their birth, and saw only one way of coping with the untimely loss of her beloved husband: moving away from the village where everyone and everything reminded her of their happy years together.

The book starts when the twins are sixteen, and Henrietta makes it her goal to have the three of them move back to the heart of the family, much against her mother's wish at first. Eventually, she succeeds, and involuntarily sets in motion a chain of events that lead to much unhappiness, some danger and even death.

Until the more dramatic events begin to unfold (more than halfway through the book), all seems bright and beautiful: the twins get along greatly with their cousins, like their aunts and uncles and are very fond of their grandparents. Their mother seems to settle in well, and takes interest in buying a house in the village and having it renovated for them. The plan is to stay at the big house with her parents-in-law until their own place is ready.
In the meantime, there are walks, visits, ice-skating, charades, church-decorating, singing and all sorts of innocent entertainment deemed appropriate for young people from wealthy families. The boys have school matters to discuss, and the girls are forever rushing upstairs to fetch their bonnets before going out.

I must confess I was getting a bit bored with all the merry-making (of course sprinkled with moralistic hints all the time), but then an accident happens that changes things for everyone involved.
From then on, I began to care a bit about the characters. Sometimes, I would have liked to shake them and scream at them for being so set in their Victorian narrow-mindedness. 

Altogether, the story left me with mixed feelings. I do agree with many of the values Miss Yonge outlines, but I can not abide the moralizing.

By the way: you are still very welcome to contribute to our blovel!

16 comments:

  1. I'm not one for being 'moralised' at either Meike.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It gets a bit boring, Graham. Nothing wrong with an author conveying his or her own values through a story, but sometimes less is more.

      Delete
  2. I know people that collect her books, in fact there is a society for it. I myself don't think she's worn very well. If you want some really interesting Victorian literature and have loads of time to read, try George Eliot, although you probably already have. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I may have read some George Eliot many years ago, but I must confess I remember next to nothng, so perhaps it is time to look at some books again.

      Delete
  3. Hello Meike:

    For reasons totally unknown, we have never read any of Charlotte Yonge and therefore have found this post of interest. Whether we are persuaded in her direction rather remains to be seen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Jane and Lance,
      It was my first (and most likely, my last) Yonge-read. I keep being amazed at how many of the authors I discover purely by way of their works being on offer for free are said to have been immensely popular bestsellers in their time.

      Delete
  4. If i want morals, i'll read Aesop!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wish we had English books here in Trapani. We have several bookshops but nothing in English. I know I can order them online but I like to browse and choose a book. Yesterday I went to the center of the city and I noticed many new books but in Italian, and I like to read them in the original.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Same as you, Francesca, if possible, I read a book in its original language. I'm afraid my French is not good enough to read an entire book in French, and it's been a while since I have read much Italian, but whenever I open the kindle shop on Amazon, there are always so many books in various languages for free.

      Delete
  6. Another author and book I never heard of until now. I don't think I'll put this one on my list just now, though! :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Not an author I know, but now I think I never will! Grace Liningston Hill is an American author from bygone times who had a few books without long religious moralizing, but almost all of them did and I can't read them at all.It's sad because she was a wonderful storyteller except for that. (Not a serious writer, but a good storyteller.) She was prolific and extremely popular at a time when writing was one of the only ways a woman could earn a lot of money. Yonge was also popular, prolific and well to do. I've only read one or two of her books, ones which were not really religious such as The Little Duke.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is just sad that every time the young people in the book are about to have some fun, they are "in danger" of being egoistically reckless and not heeding the adults' good advice for caution. Of course, teenagers have probably always had a way of going against the wishes of their elders, but in this book, religion is brought in like a true spoilsports, which it shouldn't be.

      Delete
  8. Christian moralistic tales bring me out in hives. Not a book I would pick up voluntarily.

    Perhaps that’s the reason the writer is more or less forgotten except for a few moralistic quotes?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are right, Friko, that must be why she is not so well remembered. Other authors who wrote more or less at the same time are still read a lot, such as Edith Nesbit. In her books (which I love!), children have FUN, and are real characters with faults and strengths, and religion is - as far as I can remember - only fleetingly, if at all, mentioned.

      Delete