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Adeline Mowbray
Personal as well as political, Adeline Mowbray (1804) is loosely based on the relationship between Amelia Opie's friends, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. Written in a period of conservative reaction in Britain, the novel recalls the earlier radical era of the 1790s. Encouraged by her mother to pursue an interest in radical social ideas, Adeline Mowbray innocently puts her theories of idealized love into practice. Her attempt to live with the philosopher Frederic Glenmurray outside marriage is condemned by both her mother and society. Adeline and Glenmurray's relationship becomes the focal point for Opie's satire on society's attitudes to education, women, marriage, masculine and feminine codes of honour, filial loyalty and the struggle to justify individual choice.
290 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1804
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July 13, 2015
Out of all of the relationships we encounter in our lives, I am not certain there is a more complicated relationship than that with our mothers. Bonus points in complicating matters if the relationship is between a mother and her daughter. I have no science to back that statement up, but I'm sure it's documented somewhere.
I picked this book up once upon a time because I had never heard of it and the publisher, Pandora, specializes in "Mothers of the Novel", which I thought was neat because there are all these books written long ago that no one has ever heard of, primarily because they were written by women. Not cool.
This particular book was written by Amelie Opie, a woman who was friends with Mary Wollstonecraft - the mother of Mary Shelley. This book is loosely based on Wollstonecraft's life which is definitely fascinating, and since I'm on this whole Wollstonecraft-Shelley-and-team kick, I thought it was perfect that this was on my shelf right now.
Adeline Mowbray is the Mary Wollstonecraft of this novel. Raised by her mother to have rather radical beliefs (particularly for the late 18th century), Adeline ultimately has relations with Frederic Glenmurray, a man she has no intention of marrying. Gasp! Scandal! (Glenmurray, for those of you in the know, is the Gilbert Imlay of in Wollstonecraft's life.) Her mother, of all people, condemns her and and Adeline finds herself out in the world without even her mother's support. She encounters a lot of judgmental people who give her a lot of sass for her decision not to marry Glenmurray, and there's a terribly long chapter in which there is a lot of Adeline's thoughts on marriage and society. It was interesting, don't get me wrong, but it was tediously moralizing.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't always care for a lot of historical fiction based on the lives of real people because it always seems to be awfully one-sided and heavily biased and oh, everyone is so perfect. Maybe this one felt a little less so because I pretty much agreed with Adeline's views on marriage and most everything else, except for all the fainting and swooning because I can't tell you the last time I fainted and/or swooned. But also I feel Opie probably did know what she was talking about, and I would love to have heard that conversation between her and Wollstonecraft: "Hey, I want to write a story about you. You're going to faint a lot. Cool?" High fives all around the table.
The relationship between Adeline and her mother is so awful and heartbreaking, with lots of sighing and clasping at the breast, and wailing. I'm pretty sure there was wailing.
It's always easy to read these books from a modern perspective, like who cares that people live together unmarried and even have a kid together? But in 1804 when this book was published, and in the late 1700s when this story took place, that was not common and it was frowned upon in most circles. Women were not to be educated, and here Adeline and her mother were both relatively well-educated. There was also a relationship involving mixed relations. Way ahead of its time.
Except that it pretty much fell off the literary map, didn't it, so thanks to Pandora for bringing back and giving it some life again. Women wrote books too, world. Good ones, even.
I picked this book up once upon a time because I had never heard of it and the publisher, Pandora, specializes in "Mothers of the Novel", which I thought was neat because there are all these books written long ago that no one has ever heard of, primarily because they were written by women. Not cool.
This particular book was written by Amelie Opie, a woman who was friends with Mary Wollstonecraft - the mother of Mary Shelley. This book is loosely based on Wollstonecraft's life which is definitely fascinating, and since I'm on this whole Wollstonecraft-Shelley-and-team kick, I thought it was perfect that this was on my shelf right now.
Adeline Mowbray is the Mary Wollstonecraft of this novel. Raised by her mother to have rather radical beliefs (particularly for the late 18th century), Adeline ultimately has relations with Frederic Glenmurray, a man she has no intention of marrying. Gasp! Scandal! (Glenmurray, for those of you in the know, is the Gilbert Imlay of in Wollstonecraft's life.) Her mother, of all people, condemns her and and Adeline finds herself out in the world without even her mother's support. She encounters a lot of judgmental people who give her a lot of sass for her decision not to marry Glenmurray, and there's a terribly long chapter in which there is a lot of Adeline's thoughts on marriage and society. It was interesting, don't get me wrong, but it was tediously moralizing.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't always care for a lot of historical fiction based on the lives of real people because it always seems to be awfully one-sided and heavily biased and oh, everyone is so perfect. Maybe this one felt a little less so because I pretty much agreed with Adeline's views on marriage and most everything else, except for all the fainting and swooning because I can't tell you the last time I fainted and/or swooned. But also I feel Opie probably did know what she was talking about, and I would love to have heard that conversation between her and Wollstonecraft: "Hey, I want to write a story about you. You're going to faint a lot. Cool?" High fives all around the table.
The relationship between Adeline and her mother is so awful and heartbreaking, with lots of sighing and clasping at the breast, and wailing. I'm pretty sure there was wailing.
It's always easy to read these books from a modern perspective, like who cares that people live together unmarried and even have a kid together? But in 1804 when this book was published, and in the late 1700s when this story took place, that was not common and it was frowned upon in most circles. Women were not to be educated, and here Adeline and her mother were both relatively well-educated. There was also a relationship involving mixed relations. Way ahead of its time.
Except that it pretty much fell off the literary map, didn't it, so thanks to Pandora for bringing back and giving it some life again. Women wrote books too, world. Good ones, even.
June 21, 2017
This is the third time I've read Opie's novel (it's one of my thesis books). It gets better each time. When I first read it, I found its melodramatic elements difficult to take. I also misinterpreted the plot. Really this is a raw and thought-provoking book. It is melodramatic because it deals with tough social questions which are hard to weave into the sinuous narrative of a Bildungsroman. Today, a novelist tackling with such large-scale, controversial issues might also use melodrama to make their point, but they would wrap it up in ironic magic-realist conventions to make it more palatable to the reader. Authors like Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garçia Marquez and Arundhati Roy depict fragmented societies on the verge of massive social change, as Opie does, but she tries to make the coincidences and reversals of her plot seem realistic, where Rushdie, Marquez and Roy are happy for such plot elements to seem artificial. This makes it easier to misinterpret Opie. She has a sincere narrative voice, which encourages the unwary reader to take things at face value. The wry postmodern melodrama always encourages suspicion.
In a nutshell, the book is about a woman who tries to live unmarried with her lover, is stigmatised, and suffers terribly. Two hundred years later, attitudes about cohabitation have changed, but there is still residual prejudice against libidinous women and single mothers, and many other kinds of stigma besides. The book is still relevant. Adeline winds up regretting her actions, which has led many readers (including this one) to think that the novel puts forward the oppressive idea that women should always conform. But it is actually more complex than that.
Opie's great strength as a novelist is her liberalism. Every character puts their point of view. Every character is complex, riven by divided loyalties, the victim of unconscious prejudices, their power of action limited by society, their opinions inevitably undermined by incomplete evidence. It is wrong to think that any character—including the remorseful Adeline—represents the the truth. Her sufferings have many causes, and at different times many characters suggest many different solutions to them, none of which is perfect.
Opie had the power to make her original readers burst into tears. But as I say, her melodramatic technique has less power over 21st-century sensibilities. Her great contemporary, Mary Shelley, has more success with modern readers. Her own great study of stigma, Frankenstein, draws on gothic and science-fiction conventions which still have a grip on the imagination. That said, I can think of one melodramatist who retains power to move and shock: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, whose brilliant films, such as Ali: Angst Essen Seele Auf, Lola, Händler der Vier Jahreszeiten and Faustrecht der Freiheit, tread much the same ground as Opie's great forgotten novel, and sometimes in much the same manner.
In a nutshell, the book is about a woman who tries to live unmarried with her lover, is stigmatised, and suffers terribly. Two hundred years later, attitudes about cohabitation have changed, but there is still residual prejudice against libidinous women and single mothers, and many other kinds of stigma besides. The book is still relevant. Adeline winds up regretting her actions, which has led many readers (including this one) to think that the novel puts forward the oppressive idea that women should always conform. But it is actually more complex than that.
Opie's great strength as a novelist is her liberalism. Every character puts their point of view. Every character is complex, riven by divided loyalties, the victim of unconscious prejudices, their power of action limited by society, their opinions inevitably undermined by incomplete evidence. It is wrong to think that any character—including the remorseful Adeline—represents the the truth. Her sufferings have many causes, and at different times many characters suggest many different solutions to them, none of which is perfect.
Opie had the power to make her original readers burst into tears. But as I say, her melodramatic technique has less power over 21st-century sensibilities. Her great contemporary, Mary Shelley, has more success with modern readers. Her own great study of stigma, Frankenstein, draws on gothic and science-fiction conventions which still have a grip on the imagination. That said, I can think of one melodramatist who retains power to move and shock: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, whose brilliant films, such as Ali: Angst Essen Seele Auf, Lola, Händler der Vier Jahreszeiten and Faustrecht der Freiheit, tread much the same ground as Opie's great forgotten novel, and sometimes in much the same manner.
August 2, 2010
Adeline Mowbray has been brought up by her intellectual mother to pursue radical thought, but when she puts that thought into practice by living with the philosopher Frederic Glenmurray while not married to him, Adeline is condemned by all, including her mother. Opie was a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, and Adeline Mowbray, which deals with the effects of a cohabitational relationship outside of marriage, is partly based on their relationship.
Opie explores the contrast between the real world in which Adeline must live and "the world as it ought to be" in which she wants to live. Her conclusions are unsettling to modern readers, though reasonable for her times, and I rather wished for a slightly less downbeat ending, but it's a very thoughtful book, with some excellent and deep characterization, particularly of Adeline and her mother.
Opie explores the contrast between the real world in which Adeline must live and "the world as it ought to be" in which she wants to live. Her conclusions are unsettling to modern readers, though reasonable for her times, and I rather wished for a slightly less downbeat ending, but it's a very thoughtful book, with some excellent and deep characterization, particularly of Adeline and her mother.
Read
November 3, 2010I set out to read Amelia Opie's novel Adeline Mowbray more from sociological than literary interest: an 1804 treatment of voluntary cohabitation outside marriage couldn't fail to grab my interest, especially since this is a topic treated surprisingly seldom even by modern authors. Opie was, then, politically ahead of her time, but she surprised me by also writing an engaging book, if one at times infuriating to a contemporary sensibility. Despite some standard-issue melodrama and creaky plot devices of the type often found in eighteenth-century "novels of sensibility," the pages flew by whenever I picked up Adeline Mowbray, and the author's sneakily satirical wit kept me guessing to some extent about exactly who she was condemning and for what cause. (I also couldn't avoid a gossipy curiosity about how the novel's models, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, took to their friend Amelia's representations of them.) Of course, my level of engagement was increased by the fact that I was constantly arguing with Opie, which I believe to be exactly the reader response she intended. Even if she was not speaking to the gender politics of twenty-first century America, she was undoubtedly writing to provoke, and it's pretty remarkable that she still manages so well after two hundred years, albeit not exactly in the ways she might have foreseen.
The plot of Adeline Mowbray begins with its title character's unorthodox education. Raised by a self-declared genius of a mother who is fond of spouting off about leftist treatises in company, Adeline is encouraged to imbibe "dangerous" tomes of philosophy and political science, with no male oversight for her delicate female brain. The more practical aspects of her upbringing are neglected, and she would hardly have learned housewifery at all had not her grandmother taken her in hand. Unlike her mother, Adeline makes the scandalous mistake of actually wanting to live by the ideals she has come to believe in, including the abolition of the marriage institution. Upon meeting and falling in love with Glenmurray, one of the philosophers she so admires, she therefore enthusiastically declares that she will never subject him to that ignominious state, but will live with him outside wedlock in a free and voluntary relationship. Despite his protestations—the man has not the courage of his convictions, having lived in the world more than his lover—she will not budge, and refuses to become his wife. Throw in a sleazy would-be-rapist of a stepfather and the ill-health of her well-meaning philosopher-lover, and things quickly proceed to get very tragic for poor Adeline.
There is very definitely a political case at the heart of Opie's novel—an argument against what she saw as the pie-in-the-sky idealism of William Godwin and others like him who dared to preach against the "accumulated wisdom of ages." Disaster thus falls thick and fast onto Adeline from the moment she announces her anti-marriage stance: otherwise respectable men feel free to molest her; libertines assume she's one of them; even the men who acknowledge her intelligence and virtue refuse to introduce her to their wives and sisters, who, in any case, actively work for her downfall because they see her as a rival and a threat to their own security; she and Glenmurray live in isolation. Then there are the results she anticipates for her children: they will be ostracized as a bastard by their schoolfellows; they will hate and reject their parents because of this; they will grow up lonely because their mother will be shunned. So too, when Glenmurray dies Adeline will be left in poverty because she can't inherit (or at least, she doesn't inherit because her husband, despite ostensibly being tortured by the idea of leaving her destitute, doesn't change his will). And later on, even if Adeline manages to find a man who falls in love with her and "makes her an honest woman," her scandalous past will mean he is ashamed to admit to his friends and acquaintances that he is married at all, and even professionals like lawyers and merchants will fail to take her seriously, thinking she is still a kept woman. Meanwhile, female acquaintances she has made along the way may be led into vice by her example, and she will have to live with the guilt of having ruined others as well as herself.
To contrast with all these dire circumstances, Opie refuses to present the original objections that motivate her character Glenmurray (or motivated her friend William Godwin) to write against the marriage institution in the first place 1 . I found this a bit frustrating, as if I were listening to one side of a violent telephone conversation. But the reason for Opie's omission is built right into her text: ideas like those of Glenmurray were believed dangerous, irresponsible even to discuss lest some idealistic young woman like Adeline pick up one's novel and be led astray.
I mention "the wisdom of the ages" above, and indeed the idea is a real touchstone for Opie; the phrase is repeated some eight or nine times throughout the novel as different characters, and eventually Adeline herself, bemoan her foolishness in attempting to fly in the face of convention. Which brings up the whole question of progressiveness versus conservatism in different eras. To this modern reader, Opie's reluctance to even consider the possibility of challenging the status quo, merely on the argument that many previous generations have accepted it, seems strikingly conservative. Still, as Nymeth pointed out in a recent post on Wilkie Collins, a more nuanced view is necessary: in 1804, the mere act of writing a novel in which a sympathetic heroine decided to live with a lover outside marriage was a radical act. Although Adeline is punished (and punished, and punished some more) for her non-conformity, Opie never makes her the villain, and she more or less respects Adeline's ability to make a rational decision herself, rather than making her the victim of a scheming rake. What's more, although she chides Adeline for giving in to her youthful exuberance rather than respecting the wisdom of her elders, such an attitude is not gender-based; she takes the same line with Glenmurray, who published his offensive tract at the young age of nineteen. In some ways, then, Opie is quite subversive: she presents an intelligent, sympathetic woman who makes a hasty decision for all the right reasons, with a minimum of condemnation.
So too, she points out the ways in which it is possible to stray from virtue even when married: one character uses marriage as a cover to maintain her respectability while still carrying on affairs; another is so jealous of her husband's attentions that she intrigues against any female under the age of eighty. The back-cover material of my copy of Adeline Mowbray claims that the novel contrasts "the world as it is" with "the world as it should be," and that's a tempting way to reconcile Opie's seemingly conflicting messages: in an ideal world, she could be saying, there would be less vicious prejudice; but in the world as it is, we need the marriage institution to guard women against its cruelty. I think, on one level, Opie is saying that, although it fails to sort her text very neatly. Her own depiction of women who have decided to live outside wedlock for reasons other than virtuous philosophy, for example, is fairly vicious. Adeline, Opie says approvingly, would be the first to shun some acquaintances of Glenmurray's if she knew their true character (their primary faults are those of promiscuity)—implying that she herself is invested in the shame-based social structure, even if she wishes it would not shame Adeline. Still, Opie's work is a fascinating glimpse at the mindset of a former era's progressive fringe.
1 Out of curiosity, I looked up the portion of Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice that concerns the abolition of marriage. His position is one of extreme individualism, and he objects to anything that irrevocably binds one human to another and prevents him from pursuing his own individual development. That, combined with the very small degree to which the typical 18th-century couple were allowed to know each other before marriage, persuaded him against the institution. Whereas my own reservations about state-sponsored marriage are explicitly feminist—its long history as a means of legally reducing women to the status of property, including revoking their own property rights and failing to penalize rape within marriage; its equally long history of being used as a tool to deny civil rights to groups of people who diverge from the status quo, such as same-sex, mixed-race, mixed-religion, or slave couples; its attempts to codify in secular law a vision of morality with which I disagree, i.e., that any child could lack "legitimacy" or that sexuality not sanctioned by a priest/rabbi/shaman/justice of the peace is debased or destructive—Godwin's, as presented in Enquiry, were not. He was more concerned that every person got enough autonomy, enough time away from the crowd and from pressing familial obligations, to develop and pursue their own thoughts. Which is neither here nor there; I was just curious about the half of the conversation that Opie left out.
The plot of Adeline Mowbray begins with its title character's unorthodox education. Raised by a self-declared genius of a mother who is fond of spouting off about leftist treatises in company, Adeline is encouraged to imbibe "dangerous" tomes of philosophy and political science, with no male oversight for her delicate female brain. The more practical aspects of her upbringing are neglected, and she would hardly have learned housewifery at all had not her grandmother taken her in hand. Unlike her mother, Adeline makes the scandalous mistake of actually wanting to live by the ideals she has come to believe in, including the abolition of the marriage institution. Upon meeting and falling in love with Glenmurray, one of the philosophers she so admires, she therefore enthusiastically declares that she will never subject him to that ignominious state, but will live with him outside wedlock in a free and voluntary relationship. Despite his protestations—the man has not the courage of his convictions, having lived in the world more than his lover—she will not budge, and refuses to become his wife. Throw in a sleazy would-be-rapist of a stepfather and the ill-health of her well-meaning philosopher-lover, and things quickly proceed to get very tragic for poor Adeline.
It so happened, also, that something was said by one of the party which led to the subject of marriage, and Adeline was resolved not to let so good an opportunity pass of proving to Glenmurray how sincerely she approved his doctrine on that subject. Immediately, with an unreserve which nothing but her ignorance of the world, and the strange education which she had received, could at all excuse, she began to declaim against marriage, as an institution at once absurd, unjust, and immoral, and to declare that she would never submit to so contemptible a form, or profane the sacred ties of love by so odious and unnecessary a ceremony.
This extraordinary speech, though worded elegantly and delivered gracefully, was not received by any of her hearers, except sir Patrick, with any thing like admiration.
There is very definitely a political case at the heart of Opie's novel—an argument against what she saw as the pie-in-the-sky idealism of William Godwin and others like him who dared to preach against the "accumulated wisdom of ages." Disaster thus falls thick and fast onto Adeline from the moment she announces her anti-marriage stance: otherwise respectable men feel free to molest her; libertines assume she's one of them; even the men who acknowledge her intelligence and virtue refuse to introduce her to their wives and sisters, who, in any case, actively work for her downfall because they see her as a rival and a threat to their own security; she and Glenmurray live in isolation. Then there are the results she anticipates for her children: they will be ostracized as a bastard by their schoolfellows; they will hate and reject their parents because of this; they will grow up lonely because their mother will be shunned. So too, when Glenmurray dies Adeline will be left in poverty because she can't inherit (or at least, she doesn't inherit because her husband, despite ostensibly being tortured by the idea of leaving her destitute, doesn't change his will). And later on, even if Adeline manages to find a man who falls in love with her and "makes her an honest woman," her scandalous past will mean he is ashamed to admit to his friends and acquaintances that he is married at all, and even professionals like lawyers and merchants will fail to take her seriously, thinking she is still a kept woman. Meanwhile, female acquaintances she has made along the way may be led into vice by her example, and she will have to live with the guilt of having ruined others as well as herself.
To contrast with all these dire circumstances, Opie refuses to present the original objections that motivate her character Glenmurray (or motivated her friend William Godwin) to write against the marriage institution in the first place 1 . I found this a bit frustrating, as if I were listening to one side of a violent telephone conversation. But the reason for Opie's omission is built right into her text: ideas like those of Glenmurray were believed dangerous, irresponsible even to discuss lest some idealistic young woman like Adeline pick up one's novel and be led astray.
I mention "the wisdom of the ages" above, and indeed the idea is a real touchstone for Opie; the phrase is repeated some eight or nine times throughout the novel as different characters, and eventually Adeline herself, bemoan her foolishness in attempting to fly in the face of convention. Which brings up the whole question of progressiveness versus conservatism in different eras. To this modern reader, Opie's reluctance to even consider the possibility of challenging the status quo, merely on the argument that many previous generations have accepted it, seems strikingly conservative. Still, as Nymeth pointed out in a recent post on Wilkie Collins, a more nuanced view is necessary: in 1804, the mere act of writing a novel in which a sympathetic heroine decided to live with a lover outside marriage was a radical act. Although Adeline is punished (and punished, and punished some more) for her non-conformity, Opie never makes her the villain, and she more or less respects Adeline's ability to make a rational decision herself, rather than making her the victim of a scheming rake. What's more, although she chides Adeline for giving in to her youthful exuberance rather than respecting the wisdom of her elders, such an attitude is not gender-based; she takes the same line with Glenmurray, who published his offensive tract at the young age of nineteen. In some ways, then, Opie is quite subversive: she presents an intelligent, sympathetic woman who makes a hasty decision for all the right reasons, with a minimum of condemnation.
So too, she points out the ways in which it is possible to stray from virtue even when married: one character uses marriage as a cover to maintain her respectability while still carrying on affairs; another is so jealous of her husband's attentions that she intrigues against any female under the age of eighty. The back-cover material of my copy of Adeline Mowbray claims that the novel contrasts "the world as it is" with "the world as it should be," and that's a tempting way to reconcile Opie's seemingly conflicting messages: in an ideal world, she could be saying, there would be less vicious prejudice; but in the world as it is, we need the marriage institution to guard women against its cruelty. I think, on one level, Opie is saying that, although it fails to sort her text very neatly. Her own depiction of women who have decided to live outside wedlock for reasons other than virtuous philosophy, for example, is fairly vicious. Adeline, Opie says approvingly, would be the first to shun some acquaintances of Glenmurray's if she knew their true character (their primary faults are those of promiscuity)—implying that she herself is invested in the shame-based social structure, even if she wishes it would not shame Adeline. Still, Opie's work is a fascinating glimpse at the mindset of a former era's progressive fringe.
*******
1 Out of curiosity, I looked up the portion of Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice that concerns the abolition of marriage. His position is one of extreme individualism, and he objects to anything that irrevocably binds one human to another and prevents him from pursuing his own individual development. That, combined with the very small degree to which the typical 18th-century couple were allowed to know each other before marriage, persuaded him against the institution. Whereas my own reservations about state-sponsored marriage are explicitly feminist—its long history as a means of legally reducing women to the status of property, including revoking their own property rights and failing to penalize rape within marriage; its equally long history of being used as a tool to deny civil rights to groups of people who diverge from the status quo, such as same-sex, mixed-race, mixed-religion, or slave couples; its attempts to codify in secular law a vision of morality with which I disagree, i.e., that any child could lack "legitimacy" or that sexuality not sanctioned by a priest/rabbi/shaman/justice of the peace is debased or destructive—Godwin's, as presented in Enquiry, were not. He was more concerned that every person got enough autonomy, enough time away from the crowd and from pressing familial obligations, to develop and pursue their own thoughts. Which is neither here nor there; I was just curious about the half of the conversation that Opie left out.
November 23, 2021
Despite its obvious flaws, it’s an enjoyable fast-paced read!
November 17, 2023
people just don’t immediately faint when dealing with any kind of emotional distress like they used to (3.5/5)
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November 18, 2023“the only people in the world who have ever read this book are me and you guys (my students)” - prof g
December 31, 2020
they hated adeline because she told them the truth
November 18, 2025
This book sucks. I am so sorry, Prof. Brideoake. I love your class, but it feels like every book we've read has been forced upon us to hype up Northanger Abbey so we can finally enjoy something on the syllabus longer than 10 pages. My audiobook was read by someone who I can tell is from the Midwest, because her accent would occasionally slip out. Beggers can't be choosers, but hey. No one has read this book. I mentioned this in my last update, but I jokingly used it as a prop at a Geese concert while talking with a girl, and I only realized after the show that it appeared as if I was flirting with my feminist literature collection while listening to a man with greasy hair sing about his mom's polycule. Off topic, but I love Geese so much. I kinda get the plot? The greatest moment in this book is the pineapple scene cause I asked in full sincerity if there was also a sexual connotation to pineapples in 1803, leading to me needing to explain swinger culture to a class of my peers at 11:15 in the morning. At least I finished this one! I gave up on the Female Quixote after I fell two classes behind, and the assignment surrounding it was actually just another one on Pamela. I still don't have any grades in this class, but my weird obsession with Marian art better get me an A. Lame as hell, most interesting part was the rabbit hole I fell down surrounding the author's portait on the cover
August 21, 2017
Alors, le résumé m'avait alléchée et effectivement, j'ai beaucoup apprécié ce roman même si j'ai plusieurs fois pesté contre l'entêtement d'Adeline ! Dans cette histoire, on comprend effectivement le piège de professer trop jeune ses opinions. C'est ce qui arrive au grand amour d'Adeline... Elle tombe amoureuse de lui à cause de ses idées et il l'aime à la folie. Lui, comprend ce que ces préceptes ont de négatifs. Mais s'il se renie, Adeline ne l'aimera plus... J'ai aimé leur histoire, un peu moins la suite où Adeline épouse un homme pour assurer à son enfant une vie exempte de disgrâce, elle en sera bien punie !
La relation entre Adeline et sa mère est également poussée à l'extrême et on comprend que c'est la mère qui cause la ruine de sa fille. D'abord en se concentrant sur ses idées d'éducation au lieu d'éduquer puis, en cédant au désir qu'elle éprouve pour un libertin. La malédiction lancée par la mère est l'un des moments les plus forts du roman. J'avoue avoir frémi ce moment.
Au final, le tout est bien écrit et donne à réfléchir sur l'utilité des règles et surtout sur la nécessité de s'y conformer
Ce que j'aime : le personnage d'Adeline, tout d'abord fidèle à ses convictions puis vaincue par la société
Ce que j'aime moins : j'aurais apprécié de connaitre le devenir de l'enfant d'Adeline
En bref : Un excellent roman qui donne à réfléchir
Ma note
7/10
La relation entre Adeline et sa mère est également poussée à l'extrême et on comprend que c'est la mère qui cause la ruine de sa fille. D'abord en se concentrant sur ses idées d'éducation au lieu d'éduquer puis, en cédant au désir qu'elle éprouve pour un libertin. La malédiction lancée par la mère est l'un des moments les plus forts du roman. J'avoue avoir frémi ce moment.
Au final, le tout est bien écrit et donne à réfléchir sur l'utilité des règles et surtout sur la nécessité de s'y conformer
Ce que j'aime : le personnage d'Adeline, tout d'abord fidèle à ses convictions puis vaincue par la société
Ce que j'aime moins : j'aurais apprécié de connaitre le devenir de l'enfant d'Adeline
En bref : Un excellent roman qui donne à réfléchir
Ma note
7/10
November 16, 2025
2.5⭐️
A class read.
I did, in the beginning, kind of enjoy this. However, somewhere in the middle I started to feel really annoyed.
The characters were all impressively stubborn, and at first Adeline seemed like a really lovely girl, but after like, the fifth man exclaiming “she’s the fairest of all,” I somehow grew tired of this continuous emphasising on her beauty. She’s gotta have something more (or is it that men in this novel only care about physical appearance and that she’s tall? That’s as well possible.)
And Glenmurray, though he seemed to love Adeline dearly, the fact that he never for a single second tried to stand up against the society for her is also confusing…but this is the 18th century anyway.
And, I just don’t really understand why Opie chose to portray the women this way. It’s confusing that she described them as either hysterical or mean or love-blinded or narrow-minded, etc. etc. (the men weren’t any better tho, that’s at least fair.)
p. s. I understand that this novel was never written for the modern society, and it was supposed to be satirical on marriage, and on gender. I wrote this review right after I finish reading it. And perhaps, what the book was trying to convey, I, at this age of 22, am too young to fully perceive.
A class read.
I did, in the beginning, kind of enjoy this. However, somewhere in the middle I started to feel really annoyed.
The characters were all impressively stubborn, and at first Adeline seemed like a really lovely girl, but after like, the fifth man exclaiming “she’s the fairest of all,” I somehow grew tired of this continuous emphasising on her beauty. She’s gotta have something more (or is it that men in this novel only care about physical appearance and that she’s tall? That’s as well possible.)
And Glenmurray, though he seemed to love Adeline dearly, the fact that he never for a single second tried to stand up against the society for her is also confusing…but this is the 18th century anyway.
And, I just don’t really understand why Opie chose to portray the women this way. It’s confusing that she described them as either hysterical or mean or love-blinded or narrow-minded, etc. etc. (the men weren’t any better tho, that’s at least fair.)
p. s. I understand that this novel was never written for the modern society, and it was supposed to be satirical on marriage, and on gender. I wrote this review right after I finish reading it. And perhaps, what the book was trying to convey, I, at this age of 22, am too young to fully perceive.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 26, 2024
As a pleasure read, this is...okay. The writing isn't so outdated as to repulse modern readers, and the plot is fine.
As a study in feminist literature, however, it's fascinating. Modern readers may initially be appalled at its message that women should submit to marriage because social punishment for not doing so is far worse, but there is so much more to unpack. Who really benefits from marriage? What's the difference between an eighteenth century mistress and a twenty-first century girlfriend? Does the novel contradict itself by showing a loving and satisfying unsanctioned relationship, and then showing an oppressive and miserable marriage? Then, of course, there's the author's own life to take into consideration: her success and popularity as a female author, her relationship to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, and her eventual conversion to the Quaker community. I can just see a college-level lit class eating this up and then dissecting it into pieces.
As a study in feminist literature, however, it's fascinating. Modern readers may initially be appalled at its message that women should submit to marriage because social punishment for not doing so is far worse, but there is so much more to unpack. Who really benefits from marriage? What's the difference between an eighteenth century mistress and a twenty-first century girlfriend? Does the novel contradict itself by showing a loving and satisfying unsanctioned relationship, and then showing an oppressive and miserable marriage? Then, of course, there's the author's own life to take into consideration: her success and popularity as a female author, her relationship to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, and her eventual conversion to the Quaker community. I can just see a college-level lit class eating this up and then dissecting it into pieces.
December 26, 2022
Starting with the fact that I did not know the book or the writer, as none of them are generally anthologized or considered canonic but; it was a really good reading! The story was engaging and you could see Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin walking throughout the book! It is about this mother and daughter who are fond of a man's theory regarding the banality of conjugal life and everything is going well until the daughter actually decides to put it in practice with - of everyone in the universe - the very theorist who happens to be a chicken and does not believe in his own theory! I read it very fast for a course I was taking but I am gonna go back in the future and read it again after reading a bit more of Godwin and Wollstonecraft.
August 12, 2018
This is the most unconventional 18th century/romantic novel I've read yet. Adeline doesn't want to be a wife, she wants to be both in love and free. Her relationship with the philosopher Glenmurray is shocking to society, but she sticks to her guns, which I admire. It feels super modern and honest about life as a woman in early 19th century Britain, though the ending feels very generic and more like a conduct novel than the radical text it is for the most part.
December 6, 2021
3,5/5
J’ai découvert par hasard un classique méconnu en France et écrit au temps de Jane Austen. Le sujet traité par le livre est intéressant et l’autrice a dû être très courageuse pour s’en emparer à cette époque. J’ai eu un peu de mal à m’attacher au personnage principal mais l’histoire m’a suffisamment tenue en haleine avec les différents rebondissements.
Je pense que ce roman plaira à tout.e.s les fans de Jane Austen même si vous n’y retrouverez pas sa plume mordante.
J’ai découvert par hasard un classique méconnu en France et écrit au temps de Jane Austen. Le sujet traité par le livre est intéressant et l’autrice a dû être très courageuse pour s’en emparer à cette époque. J’ai eu un peu de mal à m’attacher au personnage principal mais l’histoire m’a suffisamment tenue en haleine avec les différents rebondissements.
Je pense que ce roman plaira à tout.e.s les fans de Jane Austen même si vous n’y retrouverez pas sa plume mordante.
September 28, 2019
Pas inintéressant sur le plan sociologique mais sur le plan littéraire c'est une autre histoire... une caricature du roman victorien bourré d'invraissemblances, dégoulinant de bons sentiments... les personnages sont invraisemblables , l'histoire ne tient pas debout. Pourtant bizarrement je suis allée au bout et ai été tenue en haleine !
April 27, 2022
Quite an interesting book with a fascinating visualization on gender roles and conformity. Certain plot points, however, are thrown in and create confusion. There were also several moments where there could have been a satisfying ending, but, unfortunately, we got the (what I would call) lazy ending that seems to be so common during this time period.
3/5.
3/5.
June 21, 2025
A book full of melodrama. Everybody keeps leaving the room because they’re overcome with emotion. It’s clear that Opie is being satirical, but it’s difficult to say of what; no one seems safe. Satirizing marriage? Non-marriage? Free love? Riches? Poverty? Illness? Reading? Ignorance? Interesting book that’s a bit cheesy and difficult to pin down.
August 20, 2020
You can tell Opie is a forerunner of Austen's. I did quite enjoy this story, although the ending was somewhat trite feeling. Mowbray is not particularly kind to men here, although a couple are held in high regard. Excellent narration by Stav Nisser on the free LibriVox edition.
July 30, 2019
One of the most engaging classics I have read. I definitely plan to reread this one day.
October 17, 2021
Thin plot spun into gold.
March 31, 2023
kinda caved in the end but we respect it
September 28, 2023
ROMANTICISM
October 4, 2024
Had to read this for class and it has caused me to not be able to read my own damn books so I’m counting it!!! Fight me
January 3, 2025
[read for class]
July 21, 2025
Interesting but mind numbing to read
October 30, 2024
I had to read this for a class. It was long, repetitive, and not overly entertaining. But it did give an interesting peek into life in the 1800's.
January 20, 2013
Adeline Mowbray est au final, un roman qui se lit vite, le style est fluide et facile. En lisant le résumé, je ne m'attendais pas à un roman aussi moralisateur, et à des rebondissements aussi étranges, et le roman ne manque pas de moments un peu trop rocambolesques! on sent qu'il a du servir d'inspirations à d'autre mais il ne me laissera pas un souvenir impérissable!
August 19, 2015
Perhaps lacking the subtlety we'd want now, with some clunky narrative just to motor through necessary events at times, but it's a book that stays with you somehow, and one I think I will revisit...so something in it!
February 24, 2011
This is one of those books that I should have read in grad school but didn't have time. I'm kind of glad I waited, though, to read it at leisure instead of for "work."
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