With this free ebook from
Amazon's kindle shop, I found myself right in the late 1800s; to be
specific, in the strange world of a college for young ladies in a small
town in England's south.
Back then, usually only the
daughters from wealthy families had a chance at higher education, and
even for them it was by no means self-understood that they would get
anything above what was considered the basic education for
a lady, which would usually have been imparted by a French or German
governess at the family seat and not at a school far from home.
Many heads of wealthy
families did not see it necessary for their daughters to learn more than
the ladylike skills such as cross-stitching, some dancing and music,
watercolour painting and pencil drawing, and maybe one or two foreign languages, such as French
or German.
Rather sooner than later,
their daughters would marry suitable men who'd provide for their wives
and children well enough - it was never expected of such ladies to work
for their own upkeep.
Only those unfortunate enough
to lose their parents (and/or their fortune) had a true need for work,
and more often than not, becoming governesses themselves was the only
realistic option.
In this story, 18-year-old
Priscilla Peel has been an orphan for some years. She and her three
little sisters live with an elderly aunt who struggles to put enough
food on the table for all of them. The village vicar
takes a keen interest in intelligent, serious Priscilla, and together
with the aunt makes it possible for her to go to the prestigious college
for young ladies at Kingsdene, a fictional version of Oxford, it
appears. The plan is for her to become a teacher and earn money.
When Priscilla arrives there,
she is a stranger in a new world, and the only girl poor enough to
really take her learning seriously, knowing full well that it will in
the end determine her ability to provide for her younger
sisters.
The other girls are not sure
what to make of the new girl, but she is of such good character that she
manages to find a few friends nonetheless. One of them is the most popular
girl at the school - the complete opposite of Priscilla in all respects.
Soon, jealousy rears her ugly head, and Priscilla finds herself at the centre of an intrigue she does not know how to handle.
Other puzzles want solving:
Why does nobody want to speak about the girl who used to live in
Priscilla's room before her? What happened to the first tender blossoms
of a romance between the school's most popular girl
and a young man from the men's college? Will Priscilla be able to
pursue her studies in spite of the difficult situation back home?
The cast is rather
stereotype; there are clever and beautiful girls, clever and plain ones,
earthy and warm characters as well as cold and shallow personalities. A
lot of hands-holding, kissing, hugging and putting arms
around each others necks is going on between the young ladies, and they
do not hesitate to confess their love for each other and their most
popular head teacher.
The girls live under
surprisingly few rules and are largely allowed to come and go as they
please - they are not considered "girls" but young women by the college
authorities, and more trust is put into noble principles
than into strict rules.
I must admit there were
moments when I thought "This is too much, I can't keep on reading this",
but as the story unfolded, I found that I did want to know the answers
to the questions, and to a certain extent cared
about Priscilla. For a while, I imagined things to turn out quite
differently, but I was happy enough with the actual end of the story.
"A Sweet Girl Graduate" was
written in 1891 by L.T. Meade. This pen name stands for Elizabeth
Thomasina Meade Smith, an Irish writer who during her lifetime (1844 to
1914) produced around 300 (!) books for girls; she
started writing at the age of 17. Wikipedia calls her a feminist. Most
of her life was spent in London. She was married and had at least one
daughter. For someone so prolific, it is amazing that so little seems to
be known about her.
PS: I have found more about her, if you are interested: Click here for a blog post from 2012.
I shall look forward to the review you write when you read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
ReplyDeleteThat could be some time off yet, Graham. There's a rather high TBR (To Be Read) pile of physical books on my shelf, and a virtual one on my kindle.
DeleteIt is interesting what you can come across as a Kindle free edition. Thank you for the review! :)
ReplyDeleteIt certainly is, Marcie! Were it not for my kindle, I would never have heard of at least 75 % the authors and their works I have been reading over the past few years.
DeleteAnother one I never heard of before! And again, I'm rather impressed with the projects (and the people behind the projects) of saving all these old forgotten books to the digital format for the future. :)
ReplyDeleteTrue, a lot of work has been going into digitalizing all those books, and money can't have played all that much a role, since nearly all of them are free downloads.
DeleteLike you, I'd never heard of this author before, in spite of her havinb been so immensely prolific.
I probably would get bored half way through too. This doesn’t sound like a favourite read but I suppose one example of the genre might be bearable.
ReplyDeletePerhaps L.T. Meade was justifiably forgotten?
Apparently, she was very good at writing mysteries, and co-wrote with several male authors, one of which later wroked with Dorothy Sayers, I believe.
DeleteYou're right, it was a little boring and overly sweet at times, but the story picked up pace after a while and I wanted to know its outcome.