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Tea with Mr. Rochester
When these captivating and at times bizarre stories were published posthumously in 1949, Angus Wilson wrote: 'It appears no exaggeration to say that Frances Towers's death in 1948 may have robbed us of a figure of more than purely contemporary significance. At first glance one might be disposed to dismiss Miss Towers as an imitation Jane Austen, but it would be a mistaken judgment, for her cool detachment and ironic eye are directed more often than not against the sensible breeze that blasts and withers, the forthright candour that kills the soul. Miss Towers flashes and shines now this way, now that, like a darting sunfish.' 'At her best her prose style is a shimmering marvel,' wrote the Independent on Sunday, 'and few writers can so deftly and economically delineate not only the outside but the inside of a character…There's always more going on than you can possibly fathom.' And the Guardian said: 'Her social range may not be wide, but her descriptions are exquisite and her tone poised between the wry and the romantic.'
Five of the stories were read on BBC Radio 4.
Five of the stories were read on BBC Radio 4.
178 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
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829 people want to read
About the author
Frances Towers
7 books10 followersFrances Towers, born in Calcutta in 1885, was the eldest of five children of a British Government telegraph engineer. She went to school in Bedford from the age of nine and between 1905-31 worked at the Bank of England, as a clerk and then as Assistant to the Supervisor. She wrote articles and entered literary competitions and spent her holidays abroad indulging her passions for Gothic architecture, Old Masters and mountains; her first short story was published in 1929. During the late 1930s 'Miss Fay', as she was known to her pupils, began teaching English and History at Southlands School, Harrow, where her sister was headmistress. Most of Frances Towers' short stories were written during the late 1940s, but she died suddenly of pneumonia on New Year's Day 1948, the year before the publication of her only book Tea with Mr Rochester.
[from Persephone Books]
[from Persephone Books]
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
July 20, 2021
This started off with a bang and ended up with a meh. Oh well…3 stars.
In reading the afterward by Frances Towers, I realized, too late, that reading these stories in one sitting was not a good idea….because they started to sound the same in terms of overall plot.
Truth be told, after reading the first four stories and being very enthused about them, and then reading on the rest, it seemed like they were written by two different people (although the writing style was similar). The latter stories packed no or little punch for me, plus some were really hard to follow initially. Towers had only one collection of short stories to her credit…she unfortunately died of pneumonia before this book was even published. In the Afterward, Frances Thomas likens some of Towers' characters to those found in Anita Brookner’s writing and I wholeheartedly concur. I haven’t read Brookner’s writing in ages…although I have many of her novels because I was a big fan of hers.
Here are the stories and my ratings:
• Violet – 4 stars
• Tea with Mr. Rochester – 4 stars [This is the same Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre fame. The protagonist in the story holds a person that she and her aunt are going to tea with as similar to stature to that of Mr. Rochester. Too bad she made a gaffe when he asked her what she thought of him – “ I think that you more knave than fool.” (it sort of slipped out….oops! But all’s well that ends well! 😊 🙃
• The Little Willow – 5 stars [I started to get teary eyed at the end of this story but please don’t tell anybody that. I wouldn’t want that to get out…]
• Don Juan and the Lily – 4 stars
• The Rose in the Picture – 2.5 stars
• Spade Man Over the Water – 2 stars [This was really frustrating as I had no idea what the ending was. The last paragraph left me totally flummoxed, like, huh????]
• Strings in Hollow Shells – 1.5 stars
• The Chosen and the Rejected – 1.5 stars
• Lucinda – 1.5 stars
• The Golden Rose – 3 stars
Note: Boy, I wish I lived in a house that was wallpapered with the endpapers that make up the Persephone Book editions. They are so beautiful! ( from https://www.timeout.com/london/shoppi... These beautiful objects are covered in identical plain eggshell blue, but each book’s endpapers comprise wonderful re-creations of patterns – wallpapers, fabrics, clothing or suchlike – contemporary with the book; but, more importantly, they make for fascinating reading.
Reviews:
• One helluva review and this reviewer was teary eyed at the end of ‘The Little Willow’ too!: https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• Hmm, she says that the stories should be devoured in one sitting…but I think that was my problem! https://literarytransgressions.wordpr...
• Well, this helped me a bit with the story in which I did not get the ending….the two conversing reviewers point towards a real possibility: https://thesleeplessreader.com/2012/0...
• https://redlipsandbibliomaniacs.wordp...
In reading the afterward by Frances Towers, I realized, too late, that reading these stories in one sitting was not a good idea….because they started to sound the same in terms of overall plot.
Truth be told, after reading the first four stories and being very enthused about them, and then reading on the rest, it seemed like they were written by two different people (although the writing style was similar). The latter stories packed no or little punch for me, plus some were really hard to follow initially. Towers had only one collection of short stories to her credit…she unfortunately died of pneumonia before this book was even published. In the Afterward, Frances Thomas likens some of Towers' characters to those found in Anita Brookner’s writing and I wholeheartedly concur. I haven’t read Brookner’s writing in ages…although I have many of her novels because I was a big fan of hers.
Here are the stories and my ratings:
• Violet – 4 stars
• Tea with Mr. Rochester – 4 stars [This is the same Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre fame. The protagonist in the story holds a person that she and her aunt are going to tea with as similar to stature to that of Mr. Rochester. Too bad she made a gaffe when he asked her what she thought of him – “ I think that you more knave than fool.” (it sort of slipped out….oops! But all’s well that ends well! 😊 🙃
• The Little Willow – 5 stars [I started to get teary eyed at the end of this story but please don’t tell anybody that. I wouldn’t want that to get out…]
• Don Juan and the Lily – 4 stars
• The Rose in the Picture – 2.5 stars
• Spade Man Over the Water – 2 stars [This was really frustrating as I had no idea what the ending was. The last paragraph left me totally flummoxed, like, huh????]
• Strings in Hollow Shells – 1.5 stars
• The Chosen and the Rejected – 1.5 stars
• Lucinda – 1.5 stars
• The Golden Rose – 3 stars
Note: Boy, I wish I lived in a house that was wallpapered with the endpapers that make up the Persephone Book editions. They are so beautiful! ( from https://www.timeout.com/london/shoppi... These beautiful objects are covered in identical plain eggshell blue, but each book’s endpapers comprise wonderful re-creations of patterns – wallpapers, fabrics, clothing or suchlike – contemporary with the book; but, more importantly, they make for fascinating reading.
Reviews:
• One helluva review and this reviewer was teary eyed at the end of ‘The Little Willow’ too!: https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• Hmm, she says that the stories should be devoured in one sitting…but I think that was my problem! https://literarytransgressions.wordpr...
• Well, this helped me a bit with the story in which I did not get the ending….the two conversing reviewers point towards a real possibility: https://thesleeplessreader.com/2012/0...
• https://redlipsandbibliomaniacs.wordp...
July 10, 2012
I adored these stories and found the writing quite magical. It is true that, as the Afterword points out, the main characters are all very similar - the 'literary daughter', introverted, sensitive girls of the type who fantasise about Jane Eyre's Mr Rochester, as in the title story. But that is a character that I find very sympathetic and love reading about, so I didn't mind at all.
It's sad that this collection of short stories was the only book that Frances Towers published - and even this was posthumous as a collection, although the stories had been published individually in periodicals.
It's sad that this collection of short stories was the only book that Frances Towers published - and even this was posthumous as a collection, although the stories had been published individually in periodicals.
March 9, 2015
Persephone book number forty-four is a delightful little collection of short stories by an author you won’t have come across before – unless you have read this collection, as it was sadly the only book of Frances Towers’ stories ever published. Frances Towers spent many years teaching and the majority of her short stories were written during the 1940’s – this collection was published in 1949 a year after Frances Towers had died suddenly of pneumonia.
At the centre of these stories is the so called ‘literary daughter’ – the overlooked, downtrodden, disappointed and romantically inclined young women of the Jane Eyre type. There is romance here – small quiet romance – often unhappy, or disappointed, but there is also cynicism.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
At the centre of these stories is the so called ‘literary daughter’ – the overlooked, downtrodden, disappointed and romantically inclined young women of the Jane Eyre type. There is romance here – small quiet romance – often unhappy, or disappointed, but there is also cynicism.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
December 4, 2021
"Oh, I want.. I want… to do nothing at all, just to be happy or else to do something that really matters."
Ova knjižica je preslatka! Kažem knjižica iako sadrži deset priča, valjda zato što je sadržina tako mila, nežna, ušuškana. Frances Towers se kreće između romantizma i cinizma, a do kraja svake priče ostavi trag. Njene junakinje su one koje su u adolescenciji čitale sestre Bronte i Ostinovu i koje, uz kritički pogled na svet u kome žive, ipak potajno veruju u ljubav o kojoj su maštale u izvesnoj dobi. Towers ume da zađe malo i u misteriju/horor (postoji jedna priča za koju svi priznaju da su je čitali nekoliko puta i da nisu odgonetnuli kraj).
Zbirku sam priželjkivala zbog priče "Tea with Mr Rochester", ali kao omiljenu izdvajam "Strings in Hollow Shells" za koju mi je žao što ne postoji kao roman jer me je podsetila čak i na komedije Oskara Vajlda. U njoj Frances, kroz lika koji je kombinacija gospodina Darsija i Ročestera, kaže sledeće:
”She scarcely believes in a corporeal existence at all. She is all sensibility. When she likes people, it is for some strange, poetical reason that has nothing to do with their reality, and that alarms them. I am afraid she is often let down, often hurt, poor little thing… always looking for something she can never find.”
🖤
Ova knjižica je preslatka! Kažem knjižica iako sadrži deset priča, valjda zato što je sadržina tako mila, nežna, ušuškana. Frances Towers se kreće između romantizma i cinizma, a do kraja svake priče ostavi trag. Njene junakinje su one koje su u adolescenciji čitale sestre Bronte i Ostinovu i koje, uz kritički pogled na svet u kome žive, ipak potajno veruju u ljubav o kojoj su maštale u izvesnoj dobi. Towers ume da zađe malo i u misteriju/horor (postoji jedna priča za koju svi priznaju da su je čitali nekoliko puta i da nisu odgonetnuli kraj).
Zbirku sam priželjkivala zbog priče "Tea with Mr Rochester", ali kao omiljenu izdvajam "Strings in Hollow Shells" za koju mi je žao što ne postoji kao roman jer me je podsetila čak i na komedije Oskara Vajlda. U njoj Frances, kroz lika koji je kombinacija gospodina Darsija i Ročestera, kaže sledeće:
”She scarcely believes in a corporeal existence at all. She is all sensibility. When she likes people, it is for some strange, poetical reason that has nothing to do with their reality, and that alarms them. I am afraid she is often let down, often hurt, poor little thing… always looking for something she can never find.”
🖤
October 11, 2013
This is a book that improves upon rereading. I was seduced into buying it by the humor that was instantly apparent in just the first few pages, but then when I actually settled down to reading it, I remember worrying that I'd made a mistake. The tone of the stories was colder, more distant than I'd expected. I don't think there's a single protagonist in any of her stories that is readily likeable-- some are overconfident; some are cringing, but they're always blind to their own faults in a way that does not endear. But I couldn't stop reading (even though I kept thinking to myself that I wasn't really sure I was enjoying it), and once I'd finished it, the stories and characters just stuck with me. I found myself picking up the book again and rereading it about a week later-- and it was like a whole new book! I didn't feel the coolness and reserve anymore. I was able to snuggle right down into each story and experience it in a whole new way. There is something wonderful to me about the fact that knowing the endings (she seems to like little twists or surprises for her endings) actually made the stories more enjoyable to read. It's almost like, with the tension gone, I could relax and sink into the story more. And she is a very, very good writer-- her descriptions are unusual and instantly right-feeling. It was a pleasure to just soak it up.
I would especially recommend this book to anyone with an interest in women's literature. I think there's a lot to be gotten out of it even if you decide you don't like it. It captures some very real and complex pieces of women's lives and characters. I was especially impressed by the way she captures the immaturity/discovery, certainty/uncertainty, and frustration/delight of that period from teenagehood to young-womanhood.
I also find her interesting because of the touches of magical realism in some of the stories. Sometimes I got the sense that she was playing with classic Gothic motifs-- but not with any seriousness, of course. More with a wry, teasing, but matter-of-fact tone. Take, for example the story "Lucinda", about a family with a (supposed) resident ghost by the same name. At one moment, you have such lush prose as, "Venetia was silent. She loves poetry as a gardener loves the dark, wistful violets which take to the airs of March with fragrance." I mean, c'mon, Anne Shirley woulda absolutely wet her pants with delight over that phrase. But a paragraph later, Towers is back to being playful, having the mother of the family say, "'Drat that Lucinda! ... The little minx must have hidden my thimble!'"
The story "Spade Man from over the Water" has a similarly irreverent handling of its hints at supernatural goings-on, though the overall tone of the story is darker than "Lucinda". (I would argue, however, that the darkness come not from the magical-ish details, but from the mundane ones. Whereas what I think of as a Gothic story would have lavished lots of attention on the spooky or scary details, and made an emotional impact that way, I found "Spade Man" chilling simply because the protagonist's husband is --MINOR spoiler alert!-- such a classic controlling, abusive jerkface who manages to isolate his wife from having any sort of emotional support network. In the face of that perfectly realistic level of scariness, I find supernatural appearances and disappearances to be relatively untroubling-- and I like to think that Towers was writing from a similar point of view.)
I admit that I have no idea if "magical realism" is even the right way to describe it, this unfussy use of supernatural plot points in otherwise straightforward, middle-class character studies. But whatever it is, I haven't run into much of it in circa-WWII women writers, and I wish I could find more. (Comments --especially leads on similar authors-- much appreciated! :D )
I would especially recommend this book to anyone with an interest in women's literature. I think there's a lot to be gotten out of it even if you decide you don't like it. It captures some very real and complex pieces of women's lives and characters. I was especially impressed by the way she captures the immaturity/discovery, certainty/uncertainty, and frustration/delight of that period from teenagehood to young-womanhood.
I also find her interesting because of the touches of magical realism in some of the stories. Sometimes I got the sense that she was playing with classic Gothic motifs-- but not with any seriousness, of course. More with a wry, teasing, but matter-of-fact tone. Take, for example the story "Lucinda", about a family with a (supposed) resident ghost by the same name. At one moment, you have such lush prose as, "Venetia was silent. She loves poetry as a gardener loves the dark, wistful violets which take to the airs of March with fragrance." I mean, c'mon, Anne Shirley woulda absolutely wet her pants with delight over that phrase. But a paragraph later, Towers is back to being playful, having the mother of the family say, "'Drat that Lucinda! ... The little minx must have hidden my thimble!'"
The story "Spade Man from over the Water" has a similarly irreverent handling of its hints at supernatural goings-on, though the overall tone of the story is darker than "Lucinda". (I would argue, however, that the darkness come not from the magical-ish details, but from the mundane ones. Whereas what I think of as a Gothic story would have lavished lots of attention on the spooky or scary details, and made an emotional impact that way, I found "Spade Man" chilling simply because the protagonist's husband is --MINOR spoiler alert!-- such a classic controlling, abusive jerkface who manages to isolate his wife from having any sort of emotional support network. In the face of that perfectly realistic level of scariness, I find supernatural appearances and disappearances to be relatively untroubling-- and I like to think that Towers was writing from a similar point of view.)
I admit that I have no idea if "magical realism" is even the right way to describe it, this unfussy use of supernatural plot points in otherwise straightforward, middle-class character studies. But whatever it is, I haven't run into much of it in circa-WWII women writers, and I wish I could find more. (Comments --especially leads on similar authors-- much appreciated! :D )
March 21, 2021
Towers' unique perspective, her inventive but truthful metaphors, the unexpected turns she gives to what seemed like an ordinary situation make these little stories strange and rich. I'll be rereading these.
February 26, 2012
This month, I had the great delight of reading this book with Alex from The Sleepless Reader, and then reviewing the book as a conversation. Which was lots of fun and akin to having a lively, respectful, intelligent book club discussion, which is reassuring for when I can no longer be in a book club! Anyway, we both had copies of Tea with Mr Rochester and decided to read it "together", as it were.
This is a collection of ten short stories as well as an Afterword by Frances Thomas from 2003 and a contemporary review by Angus Wilson from 1949 - I confess I didn't have time to read either of those, but let the stories stand on their own.
And now, on to the conversation-style review. We hope you enjoy it, and by all means head on over to The Sleepless Reader for more from Alex!
Alex: This was my first "off the beaten track" Persephone, having so far gone for hits like Miss Pettigrew. It was a solid 4.5 but might become my first five stars of the year (this conversation will help me decide). I was pleasantly surprise by Towers' writing style: delicate but ironic, poetic but not sentimental. It was a very distinctive voice, didn't you think? Probably why all the stories somehow felt similar, like they were the same tale told in different ways. Or maybe it's because she uses recurrent characters: the Literary Daughter, the Older-Wiser-and-Darker Woman, the Mysterious Man, etc. Either way, I think the similarities of the individual stories gave the book as a whole a nice individuality. What was your favorite of the ten?
Shannon: This was my first Persephone book, and I normally love books from this era but I struggled to connect with these stories, due to the writing style. While I loved the delicate, ironic, poetic prose (great choice of words!), I found myself constantly distracted by the effort of figuring out which character was being referred to, what a line meant etc. The narrative seemed to - not jump around but have bits missing, for me. I think it's a book that benefits from being read more than once and with fewer distractions and interruptions than I had! So the prose was both frustrating and at times beautiful, for me. But I agree that the similarities between the stories gave it continuity. The downside is that they became more predictable the further along you went. I don't know if I have a favourite, exactly, but I think the two stories I resonated with and liked the most were "Tea with Mr Rochester" and "Don Juan and the Lily". You?
Alex: I know what you mean about the not knowing who was being referred to. I had that difficulty in the first stories especially. It also didn't help that she uses "one" so often ("One dries up when people think their thoughts are above one's head"), but after a while it became sort of charming. I loved "Tea with Mr. Rochester" as well (do you think they chose it as a title for marketing reasons? Just like anything that says "Austen" sells better?). "The Little Willow" made me all teary, but my my favorite was "The Rose in the Picture". Possibly because there's more dialogue between the couple and the man's personality is more fleshed out. Also, I'm always a sucker for stories about the neglected wallflower who's finally noticed. However, the story that came to mind more often after I finished it was "The Spade Man From Over the Water". There is a tension there that you'd expect in thrillers and even ghost-stories. What do you think happened there? The perfect husband wasn't so perfect after all, right?
Shannon: I KNOW they chose the title they did because of that, because it worked on me!! As soon as I heard the title I just had to get this book. Titles, covers, those tricks work on me all the time! I found that one the story I connected with the most, because of imaginative little Prissy who falls in love with Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester, and in looking for a real-life counterpart finds herself attaching the characteristics of Rochester to one of her teachers, Mr Considine. Not only her love for the book - and Mr Rochester - appealed to me, but also there were lines in it that totally clicked with me. Like here: "Prissy felt a little cheated; as one does, for instance, when someone in a book goes out at a door on the right, whereas in one's mind the door has been all the time on the left." (p.32) That happens to me all the time! And also her daydreams, and her changing perception of Mr Considine.
"The Little Willow" was very sad, I agree. The stories seem to be a mix of sweet and sad, with a whiff of the supernatural here and there - like in "Violet", "Lucinda" and even "The Spade Man From Over the Sea" - it definitely had the feel of something dark and even vindictive, lurking in the shadows. My thought, regarding plot, while reading it was that Mrs Asher's lost husband was now young Mrs Penny's husband, because she clearly had a "moment" when she saw his picture, but I also think that the darker tone of the story, whenever Mrs Penny thought of Rupert, as well as that line at the end, "Treachery! ... But whose?" - I had to stop and think, am I reading too much into it, and adding melodrama that isn't really there? But how else am I to take the line about treachery - unless all it really refers to is the end of their friendship because of the return of a husband. Maybe Mrs Penny is just feeling guilty...? But why, then, Mrs Asher's reaction to the photo? See, I'm a bit lost but I actually enjoyed the ambiguous nature of this story! The not-knowing is part of the fun!
Alex: That quote about feeling cheated was great, also had it marked :) I also felt he was the "lost husband." Maybe he wasn't a lost husband at all, but just a lover who abandoned her with her children. Treachery because her friend, who she was beginning to love, left without a goodbye and treachery from her husband (she definitely suspected!). Lots of food for though in that story, reminds me of The Turn of the Screw in it similarly vague ending. Most stories are filled with literary references. Towers' love of Charles Lamb reminded me of the narrator of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, who's constantly mentioning him as well. (I feel the Universe is telling me to give him a try him) She also clearly loved Shakespeare and Chekhov, as they also appear in several of the stories. Other recurring things: roses, Spanish coffers, people who look like people in paintings, aunts. Do you think Towers was aware of this or was it just her subconscious working?
Shannon: I haven't read any Charles Lamb either - I'm not even familiar with any of his titles! Shame on me. But I loved all the literary and artistic references. I thought of the recurring motifs as an overall connection between the stories - while the stories themselves don't link in terms of recurring characters etc., they feel connected via all the recurring motifs and themes. It gives them a similar voice even when the tone changes, which was a nice touch. Whether it was deliberate of not I've no idea! It was interesting to me, though, that even with all the lovely flowers, the stories still had that air of a funeral about them (or maybe the flowers added to that!). Do you know what I mean? As far as I know, she wrote these after WWII, and I can't help but think that the war influenced all writers in the 40s and 50s, in different ways: with Towers, I was actually mildly surprised at the tone of - not defeat, but quiet resignation, that seemed to be present in most of the stories. What I mean is, there wasn't much energy, not like after WWI. In the week or so since I finished reading it, that's the sense that lingers. You've got stories of lovers lost in the war, of ghosts, of women keeping each other company in the absence of men. I don't mean that the stories are all sad or anything, just... quietly accepting. Am I projecting too much?
Alex: Very good points! I know exactly what you mean about funerals. There's this... subdued feeling about the stories. Like people whispering and flowers that are lovely but on the verge of wilting. The home environments she describes so well also come off as sort of stifling and somehow outside reality. I think someone like Hitchcock would have loved to film "Violet" for Twilight Zone. It was a real accomplishment of Towers to pull off atmospheres that cause such a (lingering) impression. It's a book that I'd like to revisit at some point. I wonder what visions it will inspire then.
Shannon: I was thinking much the same thing: some of the stories, like "Violet" and "Lucinda" and even the Spade Man story we were discussing earlier, would make great creepy films! Especially with that slightly morbid atmosphere. I can't help but think that Towers was actually aiming for something really positive and hopeful and uplifting with these stories - but I don't think WWII was so easily escaped. You've certainly given me a more positive impression of this book, Alex! I still don't love it, but it was such a healthy discussion in terms of helping me focus on its good points! It was lots of fun. :)
This is a collection of ten short stories as well as an Afterword by Frances Thomas from 2003 and a contemporary review by Angus Wilson from 1949 - I confess I didn't have time to read either of those, but let the stories stand on their own.
And now, on to the conversation-style review. We hope you enjoy it, and by all means head on over to The Sleepless Reader for more from Alex!
Alex: This was my first "off the beaten track" Persephone, having so far gone for hits like Miss Pettigrew. It was a solid 4.5 but might become my first five stars of the year (this conversation will help me decide). I was pleasantly surprise by Towers' writing style: delicate but ironic, poetic but not sentimental. It was a very distinctive voice, didn't you think? Probably why all the stories somehow felt similar, like they were the same tale told in different ways. Or maybe it's because she uses recurrent characters: the Literary Daughter, the Older-Wiser-and-Darker Woman, the Mysterious Man, etc. Either way, I think the similarities of the individual stories gave the book as a whole a nice individuality. What was your favorite of the ten?
Shannon: This was my first Persephone book, and I normally love books from this era but I struggled to connect with these stories, due to the writing style. While I loved the delicate, ironic, poetic prose (great choice of words!), I found myself constantly distracted by the effort of figuring out which character was being referred to, what a line meant etc. The narrative seemed to - not jump around but have bits missing, for me. I think it's a book that benefits from being read more than once and with fewer distractions and interruptions than I had! So the prose was both frustrating and at times beautiful, for me. But I agree that the similarities between the stories gave it continuity. The downside is that they became more predictable the further along you went. I don't know if I have a favourite, exactly, but I think the two stories I resonated with and liked the most were "Tea with Mr Rochester" and "Don Juan and the Lily". You?
Alex: I know what you mean about the not knowing who was being referred to. I had that difficulty in the first stories especially. It also didn't help that she uses "one" so often ("One dries up when people think their thoughts are above one's head"), but after a while it became sort of charming. I loved "Tea with Mr. Rochester" as well (do you think they chose it as a title for marketing reasons? Just like anything that says "Austen" sells better?). "The Little Willow" made me all teary, but my my favorite was "The Rose in the Picture". Possibly because there's more dialogue between the couple and the man's personality is more fleshed out. Also, I'm always a sucker for stories about the neglected wallflower who's finally noticed. However, the story that came to mind more often after I finished it was "The Spade Man From Over the Water". There is a tension there that you'd expect in thrillers and even ghost-stories. What do you think happened there? The perfect husband wasn't so perfect after all, right?
Shannon: I KNOW they chose the title they did because of that, because it worked on me!! As soon as I heard the title I just had to get this book. Titles, covers, those tricks work on me all the time! I found that one the story I connected with the most, because of imaginative little Prissy who falls in love with Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester, and in looking for a real-life counterpart finds herself attaching the characteristics of Rochester to one of her teachers, Mr Considine. Not only her love for the book - and Mr Rochester - appealed to me, but also there were lines in it that totally clicked with me. Like here: "Prissy felt a little cheated; as one does, for instance, when someone in a book goes out at a door on the right, whereas in one's mind the door has been all the time on the left." (p.32) That happens to me all the time! And also her daydreams, and her changing perception of Mr Considine.
"The Little Willow" was very sad, I agree. The stories seem to be a mix of sweet and sad, with a whiff of the supernatural here and there - like in "Violet", "Lucinda" and even "The Spade Man From Over the Sea" - it definitely had the feel of something dark and even vindictive, lurking in the shadows. My thought, regarding plot, while reading it was that Mrs Asher's lost husband was now young Mrs Penny's husband, because she clearly had a "moment" when she saw his picture, but I also think that the darker tone of the story, whenever Mrs Penny thought of Rupert, as well as that line at the end, "Treachery! ... But whose?" - I had to stop and think, am I reading too much into it, and adding melodrama that isn't really there? But how else am I to take the line about treachery - unless all it really refers to is the end of their friendship because of the return of a husband. Maybe Mrs Penny is just feeling guilty...? But why, then, Mrs Asher's reaction to the photo? See, I'm a bit lost but I actually enjoyed the ambiguous nature of this story! The not-knowing is part of the fun!
Alex: That quote about feeling cheated was great, also had it marked :) I also felt he was the "lost husband." Maybe he wasn't a lost husband at all, but just a lover who abandoned her with her children. Treachery because her friend, who she was beginning to love, left without a goodbye and treachery from her husband (she definitely suspected!). Lots of food for though in that story, reminds me of The Turn of the Screw in it similarly vague ending. Most stories are filled with literary references. Towers' love of Charles Lamb reminded me of the narrator of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, who's constantly mentioning him as well. (I feel the Universe is telling me to give him a try him) She also clearly loved Shakespeare and Chekhov, as they also appear in several of the stories. Other recurring things: roses, Spanish coffers, people who look like people in paintings, aunts. Do you think Towers was aware of this or was it just her subconscious working?
Shannon: I haven't read any Charles Lamb either - I'm not even familiar with any of his titles! Shame on me. But I loved all the literary and artistic references. I thought of the recurring motifs as an overall connection between the stories - while the stories themselves don't link in terms of recurring characters etc., they feel connected via all the recurring motifs and themes. It gives them a similar voice even when the tone changes, which was a nice touch. Whether it was deliberate of not I've no idea! It was interesting to me, though, that even with all the lovely flowers, the stories still had that air of a funeral about them (or maybe the flowers added to that!). Do you know what I mean? As far as I know, she wrote these after WWII, and I can't help but think that the war influenced all writers in the 40s and 50s, in different ways: with Towers, I was actually mildly surprised at the tone of - not defeat, but quiet resignation, that seemed to be present in most of the stories. What I mean is, there wasn't much energy, not like after WWI. In the week or so since I finished reading it, that's the sense that lingers. You've got stories of lovers lost in the war, of ghosts, of women keeping each other company in the absence of men. I don't mean that the stories are all sad or anything, just... quietly accepting. Am I projecting too much?
Alex: Very good points! I know exactly what you mean about funerals. There's this... subdued feeling about the stories. Like people whispering and flowers that are lovely but on the verge of wilting. The home environments she describes so well also come off as sort of stifling and somehow outside reality. I think someone like Hitchcock would have loved to film "Violet" for Twilight Zone. It was a real accomplishment of Towers to pull off atmospheres that cause such a (lingering) impression. It's a book that I'd like to revisit at some point. I wonder what visions it will inspire then.
Shannon: I was thinking much the same thing: some of the stories, like "Violet" and "Lucinda" and even the Spade Man story we were discussing earlier, would make great creepy films! Especially with that slightly morbid atmosphere. I can't help but think that Towers was actually aiming for something really positive and hopeful and uplifting with these stories - but I don't think WWII was so easily escaped. You've certainly given me a more positive impression of this book, Alex! I still don't love it, but it was such a healthy discussion in terms of helping me focus on its good points! It was lots of fun. :)
June 15, 2018
For my full review: https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
Published in 1949, a year after her death, Tea With Mr Rochester is Frances Towers' only published work - a collection of short stories which had previously appeared in periodicals. She spent most of her life working as a teacher in a girls' school where her sister was headmistress. Although the afterword notes that there is a certain overlap in the stories' subject matter, Towers' prose is so flawless that this is barely noticeable. Elegant and elliptical, Tea with Mr Rochester is reminiscent of the writing of Elizabeth Bowen and reminds me again why I love 1940s fiction. Pure vintage delight.
The titular story centres around Prissy, a young girl who imagines her aunt's friend Mr Considine as Mr Rochester, thereby making actual meetings with him tricky to handle. Prissy is typical of the heroine found across the stories, the archetypal 'literary daughter'. Like Jane Eyre herself, the literary daughter may feel plain or ignored but is full of imagination and notions about the world which she must find a way of expressing. The literary daughter is on the cusp of her innocence, aware that there is more to be known.
Prissy is regarded as a child by her aunts but behind her reserve, she is full of closely-regarded romantic feeling. Aunt Athene asks cautiously about talking after lights-out at boarding school, 'Are there any horrid girls, who try to tell you things you shouldn't know?' while Prissy cringes and hopes that she will not be asked about what she is reading. Finally ordered to accompany Aunt Athene to tea with Mr Considine, Prissy sits in rapture imagining herself in Jane Eyre itself:
They went on with their gay, incomprehensible conversation as if she was not there. It was quite safe to steal glances at Mr Considine, recalling the moments when he had played with Jane, as a cat with a mouse, the delirious moments when he had broken short a sentence with a betraying word, all the moments of agony and bliss one had shared with the little governess. And that most wonderful moment of all, when he at last declared his love and gathered her into his arms, and one had nearly fainted with delight.
But suddenly Mr Considine took her by surprise. The blue eyes looked straight into her own, and then he said, with an amused smile – “Prissy has been weighing me all this time in her invisible scales. And what, Prissy, if I may ask so personal a question, is your private opinion of me?
This is the pattern for each of the stories, they are gentle and soft and then abruptly the action turns so that Towers never fails to leave her mark on the reader. My own favourite from the collection was 'The Little Willow' which also appeared to have a heavy Brontë inspiration. There are three sisters; artist Charlotte who has a mesmerising power over men, poetic Brenda who can say 'divinely right things' and then the story's central character youngest sister Lisby who is ignored by all. Lisby 'had no poetic conception of herself to impose on the minds of others. However, she had her uses. She cut sandwiches and made coffee and threw herself into the breach when some unassuming guest seemed in danger of being neglected.' A familiar pattern?
The sisters play host to a revolving cast of young men passing through London during World War II with various young men falling at the feet of Charlotte and Brenda before returning to active service and their eventual fate. One of the visitors is the quietly-spoken Simon, who Lisby takes to her heart before he is abruptly purloined by Brenda. While I am not a believer in Anne Brontë's lost love for William Weightman, the parallels between this story and that episode from Brontë mythology are clear. The conflict between Lisby's understated hearth-side affection and her sisters' seductive qualities mirrors the struggle for Anne Brontë fans to champion her more earth-bound novels against the dark passions within her sisters' books. Charlotte and Brenda take their would-be suitors' love for granted and tread them underfoot but Lisby is a very different creature. The final page of 'The Willow Tree' brought me to tears, an unusual happening.
While comparisons are more often made between Towers and Jane Austen, due to their similarly elegant sentence structure, the Brontë themes kept on unmistakably recurring throughout the book. In 'Don Juan and the Lily', Elsa notes that she had always preferred Wuthering Heights to Jane Austen. Elsa Craigie has been assured by her mother that she will never marry, since the women on her father's side never do. Her mother's five sisters had all gotten engaged right out of the schoolroom but Elsa is 'pure Craigie'. Doomed to a spinster existence, Elsa weaves exotic fantasies around her older colleague Miss Dellow, the only woman allowed to attend the looming ogre of Mr Pellow. When Miss Dellow goes on holiday and Elsa finally visits Mr Pellow's office herself, a different picture emerges.
Despite initial appearances, there is a darkness too behind various of the chapters. The opener 'Violet' sees a newly-arrived servant coming to have a very strange hold over the family, culminating in a bizarre outburst. In 'Spade Man From Over The Water', a young wife has enjoyed making a friend of her near neighbour but the ending comes so abruptly that I had to re-read the whole thing twice before I reached a firm conclusion about what precisely had gone on. Mrs Asher definitely spotted something that she did not want to tell Mrs Penny.
Chaste though Towers' writing undoubtedly is, this does not stop sex peeking at us out of the shadows, from Miss Dellow's tall tales in 'Don Juan and the Lily' to how the sight of two young people kissing and almost 'gobbling' each other has so haunted Ursula in 'The Rose in the Picture'. Strangest of all though was 'The Chosen and the Rejected', a tale full of cynicism as close friends Florence and Lucy make friends with the Prydes of the Big House only for Mrs Pryde to reveal to them her plans for her husband after her death. Like enchanted princesses, it does not seem that they will be able to escape. Indeed, while only one of the stories is overtly supernatural, there is an unearthly quality about almost all of them.
There was something so satisfyingly beautiful about Tea with Mr Rochester - it reminded me of the scent of a rose. This is perhaps unsurprising since floral imagery is used quite frequently by Towers, with Prissy noting that Aunt Athene 'talked in a rose's voice, a yellow tea rose's, and Miss Pinsett in a zinnia's, crisp and clipped' and in 'Lucinda', Venetia 'loves poetry as a gardener loves the dark, wistful violets which take the airs of March with fragrance'. In 'The Golden Rose', Emma recalls her mother 'a light in the mind and a fragrance in the memory'. Flowers are picked, plucked, arranged, re-arranged, taken as symbols of character and along the way, they lend an added fragrance to the book.
The contemporary review from 1949 notes in its final words that it 'is a bitter thought that we shall hear no more of this' and that is as true now as it was then. Frances Towers' book is such a slender thing and yet so rich in what lies within it. Writing in 2003, Frances Thomas' Afterword observes that 'whatever her age might be in real life, the spirit of the Literary Daughter is forever arrested at that interesting stage of adolescence when Jane Eyre is the greatest novel in the world and its boorish hero the man of your dreams'. The Literary Daughter is found across the pages of literature, from consciously naive Cassandra Mortmain in I Capture the Castle to the endlessly self-examining Bridget Jones. Frances Towers feels so keenly observant of human nature, her writing is at all times 'as sharp and clear as an icicle' and as one of her characters observes to another, Tea with Mr Rochester taps into the way in which 'life can be terribly sad and utterly ridiculous, sometimes at the same moment.' A stunning piece of literature - I could only feel regret that this is the only trace that Towers left behind.
Published in 1949, a year after her death, Tea With Mr Rochester is Frances Towers' only published work - a collection of short stories which had previously appeared in periodicals. She spent most of her life working as a teacher in a girls' school where her sister was headmistress. Although the afterword notes that there is a certain overlap in the stories' subject matter, Towers' prose is so flawless that this is barely noticeable. Elegant and elliptical, Tea with Mr Rochester is reminiscent of the writing of Elizabeth Bowen and reminds me again why I love 1940s fiction. Pure vintage delight.
The titular story centres around Prissy, a young girl who imagines her aunt's friend Mr Considine as Mr Rochester, thereby making actual meetings with him tricky to handle. Prissy is typical of the heroine found across the stories, the archetypal 'literary daughter'. Like Jane Eyre herself, the literary daughter may feel plain or ignored but is full of imagination and notions about the world which she must find a way of expressing. The literary daughter is on the cusp of her innocence, aware that there is more to be known.
Prissy is regarded as a child by her aunts but behind her reserve, she is full of closely-regarded romantic feeling. Aunt Athene asks cautiously about talking after lights-out at boarding school, 'Are there any horrid girls, who try to tell you things you shouldn't know?' while Prissy cringes and hopes that she will not be asked about what she is reading. Finally ordered to accompany Aunt Athene to tea with Mr Considine, Prissy sits in rapture imagining herself in Jane Eyre itself:
They went on with their gay, incomprehensible conversation as if she was not there. It was quite safe to steal glances at Mr Considine, recalling the moments when he had played with Jane, as a cat with a mouse, the delirious moments when he had broken short a sentence with a betraying word, all the moments of agony and bliss one had shared with the little governess. And that most wonderful moment of all, when he at last declared his love and gathered her into his arms, and one had nearly fainted with delight.
But suddenly Mr Considine took her by surprise. The blue eyes looked straight into her own, and then he said, with an amused smile – “Prissy has been weighing me all this time in her invisible scales. And what, Prissy, if I may ask so personal a question, is your private opinion of me?
This is the pattern for each of the stories, they are gentle and soft and then abruptly the action turns so that Towers never fails to leave her mark on the reader. My own favourite from the collection was 'The Little Willow' which also appeared to have a heavy Brontë inspiration. There are three sisters; artist Charlotte who has a mesmerising power over men, poetic Brenda who can say 'divinely right things' and then the story's central character youngest sister Lisby who is ignored by all. Lisby 'had no poetic conception of herself to impose on the minds of others. However, she had her uses. She cut sandwiches and made coffee and threw herself into the breach when some unassuming guest seemed in danger of being neglected.' A familiar pattern?
The sisters play host to a revolving cast of young men passing through London during World War II with various young men falling at the feet of Charlotte and Brenda before returning to active service and their eventual fate. One of the visitors is the quietly-spoken Simon, who Lisby takes to her heart before he is abruptly purloined by Brenda. While I am not a believer in Anne Brontë's lost love for William Weightman, the parallels between this story and that episode from Brontë mythology are clear. The conflict between Lisby's understated hearth-side affection and her sisters' seductive qualities mirrors the struggle for Anne Brontë fans to champion her more earth-bound novels against the dark passions within her sisters' books. Charlotte and Brenda take their would-be suitors' love for granted and tread them underfoot but Lisby is a very different creature. The final page of 'The Willow Tree' brought me to tears, an unusual happening.
While comparisons are more often made between Towers and Jane Austen, due to their similarly elegant sentence structure, the Brontë themes kept on unmistakably recurring throughout the book. In 'Don Juan and the Lily', Elsa notes that she had always preferred Wuthering Heights to Jane Austen. Elsa Craigie has been assured by her mother that she will never marry, since the women on her father's side never do. Her mother's five sisters had all gotten engaged right out of the schoolroom but Elsa is 'pure Craigie'. Doomed to a spinster existence, Elsa weaves exotic fantasies around her older colleague Miss Dellow, the only woman allowed to attend the looming ogre of Mr Pellow. When Miss Dellow goes on holiday and Elsa finally visits Mr Pellow's office herself, a different picture emerges.
Despite initial appearances, there is a darkness too behind various of the chapters. The opener 'Violet' sees a newly-arrived servant coming to have a very strange hold over the family, culminating in a bizarre outburst. In 'Spade Man From Over The Water', a young wife has enjoyed making a friend of her near neighbour but the ending comes so abruptly that I had to re-read the whole thing twice before I reached a firm conclusion about what precisely had gone on. Mrs Asher definitely spotted something that she did not want to tell Mrs Penny.
Chaste though Towers' writing undoubtedly is, this does not stop sex peeking at us out of the shadows, from Miss Dellow's tall tales in 'Don Juan and the Lily' to how the sight of two young people kissing and almost 'gobbling' each other has so haunted Ursula in 'The Rose in the Picture'. Strangest of all though was 'The Chosen and the Rejected', a tale full of cynicism as close friends Florence and Lucy make friends with the Prydes of the Big House only for Mrs Pryde to reveal to them her plans for her husband after her death. Like enchanted princesses, it does not seem that they will be able to escape. Indeed, while only one of the stories is overtly supernatural, there is an unearthly quality about almost all of them.
There was something so satisfyingly beautiful about Tea with Mr Rochester - it reminded me of the scent of a rose. This is perhaps unsurprising since floral imagery is used quite frequently by Towers, with Prissy noting that Aunt Athene 'talked in a rose's voice, a yellow tea rose's, and Miss Pinsett in a zinnia's, crisp and clipped' and in 'Lucinda', Venetia 'loves poetry as a gardener loves the dark, wistful violets which take the airs of March with fragrance'. In 'The Golden Rose', Emma recalls her mother 'a light in the mind and a fragrance in the memory'. Flowers are picked, plucked, arranged, re-arranged, taken as symbols of character and along the way, they lend an added fragrance to the book.
The contemporary review from 1949 notes in its final words that it 'is a bitter thought that we shall hear no more of this' and that is as true now as it was then. Frances Towers' book is such a slender thing and yet so rich in what lies within it. Writing in 2003, Frances Thomas' Afterword observes that 'whatever her age might be in real life, the spirit of the Literary Daughter is forever arrested at that interesting stage of adolescence when Jane Eyre is the greatest novel in the world and its boorish hero the man of your dreams'. The Literary Daughter is found across the pages of literature, from consciously naive Cassandra Mortmain in I Capture the Castle to the endlessly self-examining Bridget Jones. Frances Towers feels so keenly observant of human nature, her writing is at all times 'as sharp and clear as an icicle' and as one of her characters observes to another, Tea with Mr Rochester taps into the way in which 'life can be terribly sad and utterly ridiculous, sometimes at the same moment.' A stunning piece of literature - I could only feel regret that this is the only trace that Towers left behind.
April 11, 2020
Quaint, vintage and elegant, but an ultimately half-baked collection of disparate stories.
The titular story of girlish romanticism is by far the strongest; it hearkens back to an adolescent time when Jane Eyre is the best novel in existence and Mr Rochester is the dreamily dangerous love interest one looks for incessantly (and ultimately unsuccessfully) in everyday life.
In contrast, the accompanying stories focus on hazy descriptions of interior décor and perfectly appointed gardens as opposed to moral complexity. Towers’ characters lack variation and many of the stories feel unfinished.
Read these as pretty, whimsical snapshots of life in the 40s, and perhaps you won’t be disappointed.
The titular story of girlish romanticism is by far the strongest; it hearkens back to an adolescent time when Jane Eyre is the best novel in existence and Mr Rochester is the dreamily dangerous love interest one looks for incessantly (and ultimately unsuccessfully) in everyday life.
In contrast, the accompanying stories focus on hazy descriptions of interior décor and perfectly appointed gardens as opposed to moral complexity. Towers’ characters lack variation and many of the stories feel unfinished.
Read these as pretty, whimsical snapshots of life in the 40s, and perhaps you won’t be disappointed.
May 13, 2008
I've actually just re-read this delightful and in many ways sinister collection of short stories. There is a wonderful contrast between the small, enclosed, and ordinary spaces in which the stories are set--whether a drawing-room or a cottage or a village--and the deep, unfathomable, and mysterious inner lives of the characters. The stories are by turns lightly satirical and forebodingly dark. The writing is concise, but rich.
From Don Juan and the Lily:
"So it was this man whose bell Miss Dellow had to answer. But I had noticed that whereas the other senior clerks seized their notebooks and ran to answer the summons of their chiefs, she drifted out in a leisurely way and, when she returned, always sat and worshipped her lily a moment before going to the typing room."
From The Rose in the Picture:
"'... And, look, a moss-rose! ... One hardly ever sees a moss-rose nowadays.'
'Would you like one?' she said, and picked a bud, which she handed to him rather doubtfully.
He put it in his buttonhole. Seeing it there, under his formidable jaw, she thought: 'One shouldn't give little trusting flowers to young men whose minds are a closed book to one.'
'I feel awfully proud,' said Henry. 'Do you know what I shall be saying to myself all day? Ursula Halliday has given me a rose.'"
From Don Juan and the Lily:
"So it was this man whose bell Miss Dellow had to answer. But I had noticed that whereas the other senior clerks seized their notebooks and ran to answer the summons of their chiefs, she drifted out in a leisurely way and, when she returned, always sat and worshipped her lily a moment before going to the typing room."
From The Rose in the Picture:
"'... And, look, a moss-rose! ... One hardly ever sees a moss-rose nowadays.'
'Would you like one?' she said, and picked a bud, which she handed to him rather doubtfully.
He put it in his buttonhole. Seeing it there, under his formidable jaw, she thought: 'One shouldn't give little trusting flowers to young men whose minds are a closed book to one.'
'I feel awfully proud,' said Henry. 'Do you know what I shall be saying to myself all day? Ursula Halliday has given me a rose.'"
September 25, 2020
A pleasant but perhaps not lasting collection of short stories, most of which concern the pursuits of young women navigating the complex social and logistical requirements of their lives at various points in the 1940s. My favourite was 'The Chosen and the Rejected' - two women decide to take a college in a secluded village, and find themselves in a most peculiar predicament. Worth reading, I think, maybe better to take them one at a time, rather than all at once!
December 4, 2019
Its like reading a writer in progress, seeing them trying out new ideas, new phrases, new variations on a theme. Its a real insight and quite intimate as a result. And as its short stories, its all the more intense somehow.
Toast
Toast
April 28, 2022
Oh how I loved it, and oh how many buts I have! I gained the impression that the title story was somehow the weakest and got to the front cover only because... hello, MR ROCHESTER! That being said, as a title it does encapsulate the themes underrunning all the stories; the main female heroines are ALL fond of classic fiction and poetry, they measure their lives in spoonfuls of literary Romance and do not find it the least bit insensible to sacrifice major aspects of their social life - dancing balls, potentially good marriages, children, financial security - in order to meet their own expectations based on said novelistic romances and poetic characters they idolize. That is not to say the heroines are frivolous silly girls, Lydias and Mariannes. Far from being presented as light-headed, and only seen as singular and quaint by the antagonistic characters in the narratives, the women in this collection are sensible in an Austenian manner, with occasional but after all not overpowering Brontëan raptures. Theirs are interiorly centred explosions, seemingly in the vein of the modernist tradition rather than of the Romantics, who majorly inspire the author. And so these women, young and old, become incredibly relatable due to their strong personalities, in the distances they keep and self-induced solitude, and even more relatable in the social isolation they experience imposed by other women(!). For the "villains" are mostly female and the reward or dark obsession always a man, invariably idealised. While the former choice is not in itself detrimental to the politics of feminism - the more major female characters the better - it is the implication that even the most morally upstanding women can be antagonistic over a man that begins to itch in an otherwise harmoniously depicted interior landscape of a woman. The author makes a point every. single. time. of her heroine being the more devoted one, the silent sufferer and the one best capable of deeply understanding this man... and he somehow smells her thoughts in the air and utters her own sentences for her (rather!) as she is forming them, completing the introverted bookish woman's wetdream - reader, I'm looking at you! Just like the "triangle" in Jane Eyre, you might say, where Jane is proven the worthy, deep and sensitive one juxtaposed to her dark, and sadly, one-dimensional Other, and much less like Austen's more realistic, layered female relationships. While there are hints of meaningful female friendship, the story is only one and the same - a marriage plot, and often to the detriment of interesting characters developed to be thrown in the same mold. Not that it is a bad mold per se, but repetition of the theme reveals an authorial obsession for the anaemic lady with raging fire buried within, "the same woman, really, under her different guises", as she puts it in her last story, The Golden Rose. In here perhaps Towers most approximates the portrayal of the woman she dreamt of, a self-assured, self-possessed, independent thinker with an imaginative spirit and a sensitive soul; she shows self-awareness too, concerning her thematic pursuits in this collection. Not only this but, despite the crying need to be seen - BY A MAN - which manifests in suspect ways in her writing, worthy of long essays, her style redeems her. Stunningly ornamental, delightfully self-indulgent, celebratorily feminine; all this shows in her elegantly crafted sentences, revealing her other aesthetic interests through the medium of fiction and making her special to me.
I cannot decide if I am to blame the era (the 1940s not so different from the 1800s in their covertly patriarchal narratives, and oh if they were only to be found in novels!) or if it is Frances Towers' own mildly askew judgment that created this tension when it comes to her women's behaviour towards each other. She should have known better, a woman of her mental powers and extensive reading, I find myself musing over, and yet none of my prose about social issues matters more than the art she created, as it is what distinguishes in my memory simple plot from meaningful storytelling.
P.S. A pet-peeve worth mentioning is this author's choice akin to habit of ending in a plot twist! It has been considered a weakness in the form of the short story over the years and might put some people off as she can even switch genre in the last sentence. All this can put some (other) people off but I had fun and am a sucker for cheap thrills. Also, maybe it was an acceptable ending in her time?
P.P.S. Ending with a question mark can also put some people off. In fact those people seem to have a lot on their minds these days.
I cannot decide if I am to blame the era (the 1940s not so different from the 1800s in their covertly patriarchal narratives, and oh if they were only to be found in novels!) or if it is Frances Towers' own mildly askew judgment that created this tension when it comes to her women's behaviour towards each other. She should have known better, a woman of her mental powers and extensive reading, I find myself musing over, and yet none of my prose about social issues matters more than the art she created, as it is what distinguishes in my memory simple plot from meaningful storytelling.
P.S. A pet-peeve worth mentioning is this author's choice akin to habit of ending in a plot twist! It has been considered a weakness in the form of the short story over the years and might put some people off as she can even switch genre in the last sentence. All this can put some (other) people off but I had fun and am a sucker for cheap thrills. Also, maybe it was an acceptable ending in her time?
P.P.S. Ending with a question mark can also put some people off. In fact those people seem to have a lot on their minds these days.
February 23, 2025
3.5 weeeee i love the way 20th century women write about love and life and nature and mundanity it’s so magical…opens up that deep pit of yearning like no other
May 12, 2016
I had picked this book from my bookshelf thinking it was a novel short enough and small enough to take on a short trip. Instead I found myself pulled into a series of short stories which pulled me into the minds and imaginations of the various narrators. I love to immerse myself in a long novel, but Frances Towers is able often in less than twenty pages to completely grab your attention so that you simply cannot put the book down.
The central character in the first story, ‘Violet’, is the maid Violet taken on by the daughter Sophie Titmus who is being run ragged by taking care of the family household led by her demanding mother and peopled by her meek father and two sisters Lalage and Beatrice much too busy with their own lives to be of any help. Looking back Sophie sees how Violet not only took control of the physical house giving it a glow and color it didn’t have before, but Sophie believes that she took control of their lives as well, “she illumined the hidden corners of their minds, she twitched aside curtains and revealed the fears and passions of their hearts, she smelt out their secrets, pounced on them and laid them out like dead mice, and she took a hand in their destinies.”
This imagery of the animal world, not cute but really ominous and the lack of action apart from what the narrator’s intuition and imagination sees makes an appearance in all the stories in this book. Did Violet make things happen, or does it just seem that way? Is it coincidence that things work out as the participants hope, or is their compliant natures that saves them and maybe dooms the resistant Mrs. Titmus?
All the ten stories in the book take place within the small worlds of their characters. In “Little Willow” Simon Byrne visits the three sisters Charlotte, Brenda and Lisby. As in many of the stories, the story is narrated from the point of view of the shy sister, Lisby. She is drawn to Simon who is about to go to the Front but her bolder sisters appropriate him. She makes a gift to him of something precious to her on an impulse as he leaves. Only after his death does she learn that he who was equally shy loved her.
So much is imagined and so much left unspoken in these stories. Characters analyze each other based on what they imagine is being kept secret from them, and respond based on imagination rather than fact. One story, “Spade Man From Over the Water”, may actually be a figment of the narrator’s imagination but you don’t know. Laura has emerged from ten isolating years as her father’s sole caregiver and married a man she barely knows. She wanted one house but ended up living in another because of her husband’s “biases”. Is her conversation with the woman who has moved into that house real or is it a conversation with herself about the discrimination she fears because of the race of the man she has married? The question is not answered but it keeps you thinking about the story long after it’s over.
In several stories such as “The Chosen and the Rejected” an outsider inserts them self into the secure little haven both physical and psychological that the protagonists have created for themselves and disrupts it. Nothing is quite spelled out but the characters and the reader are forced by Towers to confront understand that you can’t wall out the world but have to figure out how to negotiate its complexity.
Many of the ten stories have an eerie aspect, for example the ghost narrator in “Lucinda”, but what really makes them compelling is the extent to which they occur in the imagination of the characters and come to dwell in the imagination of the reader too. What gives the title story its power is that it centers on a bookish young girl Prissy who has secretly read “Jane Eyre” and done what I think many imaginative readers do, imagined herself in the story to the extent of casting people she knows as the other characters, most notably her Aunt’s friend Mr. Considine as Mr. Rochester. Forced to accompany her aunt to have tea with him the thin curtain between reality and fantasy is rent. She inadvertently responds to him by characterizing critically him in Jane Eyre’s own words. He responds by showing that he understands the power of her fantasy world and seems to enter it. In this story Towers makes her strongest statement, albeit through a very tender story, that our imaginations are an important element in how we strive to make sense of the world.
It might seem that the stories published in 1949 would be dated because the characters are isolated in a way that modern social networking might preclude, but even as people Facebook and Facetime they still tell only what they wish to tell and their words and actions are interpreted through the filter of others’ imaginations of who is behind what they see, hear and read.
The central character in the first story, ‘Violet’, is the maid Violet taken on by the daughter Sophie Titmus who is being run ragged by taking care of the family household led by her demanding mother and peopled by her meek father and two sisters Lalage and Beatrice much too busy with their own lives to be of any help. Looking back Sophie sees how Violet not only took control of the physical house giving it a glow and color it didn’t have before, but Sophie believes that she took control of their lives as well, “she illumined the hidden corners of their minds, she twitched aside curtains and revealed the fears and passions of their hearts, she smelt out their secrets, pounced on them and laid them out like dead mice, and she took a hand in their destinies.”
This imagery of the animal world, not cute but really ominous and the lack of action apart from what the narrator’s intuition and imagination sees makes an appearance in all the stories in this book. Did Violet make things happen, or does it just seem that way? Is it coincidence that things work out as the participants hope, or is their compliant natures that saves them and maybe dooms the resistant Mrs. Titmus?
All the ten stories in the book take place within the small worlds of their characters. In “Little Willow” Simon Byrne visits the three sisters Charlotte, Brenda and Lisby. As in many of the stories, the story is narrated from the point of view of the shy sister, Lisby. She is drawn to Simon who is about to go to the Front but her bolder sisters appropriate him. She makes a gift to him of something precious to her on an impulse as he leaves. Only after his death does she learn that he who was equally shy loved her.
So much is imagined and so much left unspoken in these stories. Characters analyze each other based on what they imagine is being kept secret from them, and respond based on imagination rather than fact. One story, “Spade Man From Over the Water”, may actually be a figment of the narrator’s imagination but you don’t know. Laura has emerged from ten isolating years as her father’s sole caregiver and married a man she barely knows. She wanted one house but ended up living in another because of her husband’s “biases”. Is her conversation with the woman who has moved into that house real or is it a conversation with herself about the discrimination she fears because of the race of the man she has married? The question is not answered but it keeps you thinking about the story long after it’s over.
In several stories such as “The Chosen and the Rejected” an outsider inserts them self into the secure little haven both physical and psychological that the protagonists have created for themselves and disrupts it. Nothing is quite spelled out but the characters and the reader are forced by Towers to confront understand that you can’t wall out the world but have to figure out how to negotiate its complexity.
Many of the ten stories have an eerie aspect, for example the ghost narrator in “Lucinda”, but what really makes them compelling is the extent to which they occur in the imagination of the characters and come to dwell in the imagination of the reader too. What gives the title story its power is that it centers on a bookish young girl Prissy who has secretly read “Jane Eyre” and done what I think many imaginative readers do, imagined herself in the story to the extent of casting people she knows as the other characters, most notably her Aunt’s friend Mr. Considine as Mr. Rochester. Forced to accompany her aunt to have tea with him the thin curtain between reality and fantasy is rent. She inadvertently responds to him by characterizing critically him in Jane Eyre’s own words. He responds by showing that he understands the power of her fantasy world and seems to enter it. In this story Towers makes her strongest statement, albeit through a very tender story, that our imaginations are an important element in how we strive to make sense of the world.
It might seem that the stories published in 1949 would be dated because the characters are isolated in a way that modern social networking might preclude, but even as people Facebook and Facetime they still tell only what they wish to tell and their words and actions are interpreted through the filter of others’ imaginations of who is behind what they see, hear and read.
November 14, 2014
These short stories were written in the shadow of writers like Henry James, Rosamond Lehmann, Virginia Woolf and they suffer by comparison I suspect. They seem to be fashionable to the point that I can see no originality in them whatwosever and also no freshness, no improvement or elaboration of an existing style. I began reading them a month ago and now realise that I can recall nothing about the content of any of the stories and about the style only that I found it much too self-consciously literary. The author gave me the impression that she was asking herself all the time "how can I impress my readers most?" Every word, every attitude, every description seemed to be examined in the light of a criterion of fashion and "appropriateness" of style, the writer wnating to get into print at all costs. Never, it seems to me, does she forget herself and just tell the story she had to tell. She seems to be working full of saws and advice about being a successsful writer. Is this unduly harsh? I shall come back to these stories in due course and see if I wish to revise a harsh opinion because many Goodreads readers award her high points and claim to have enjoyed these stories very much indeed, which makes me wonder if my reaction is not peremptory.
December 29, 2015
Beautifully written, elegantly descriptive, light-as-air short stories.
A book to breeze through in a few hours, spending moments here and there with a series of girls and women, young and old, alone and accompanied by sisters, mothers, friends, strangers. Dodie Smith writes like this, with a lightness and a breathless skipping quality, the thoughts and horrors and delights of the heroines wandering from one place to another quite seamlessly. We enter their heads with a sigh, sinking beneath the surface of their minds to float a while in their time of crisis or their pivotal moment, then exit quietly out the other side with relief, or pain, or sadness. It is a lovely way to spend time.
As an addendum, the descriptions of houses and gardens in these stories is transcendental. It makes one immediately want to redecorate the house and plant things, so that we too may one day have a room so beautifully arranged as Julia's, or a garden as romantic as Ursula's. These backgrounds for the quiet, shifting dramas of life fill the mind with a richness that would be missed if the same dramas played out on a paler stage.
A book to breeze through in a few hours, spending moments here and there with a series of girls and women, young and old, alone and accompanied by sisters, mothers, friends, strangers. Dodie Smith writes like this, with a lightness and a breathless skipping quality, the thoughts and horrors and delights of the heroines wandering from one place to another quite seamlessly. We enter their heads with a sigh, sinking beneath the surface of their minds to float a while in their time of crisis or their pivotal moment, then exit quietly out the other side with relief, or pain, or sadness. It is a lovely way to spend time.
As an addendum, the descriptions of houses and gardens in these stories is transcendental. It makes one immediately want to redecorate the house and plant things, so that we too may one day have a room so beautifully arranged as Julia's, or a garden as romantic as Ursula's. These backgrounds for the quiet, shifting dramas of life fill the mind with a richness that would be missed if the same dramas played out on a paler stage.
November 27, 2014
This collection of short stories is excellent to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea. The little nuggets of everyday life, described in Towers´ lovely style, with sometimes striking metaphors and a certain emotional honesty made me want to know these characters, their friends, their society better. But that, of course, is the beauty of the short story form, if written well: you'd like to step beyond the story, know more, but have to make do with the story there is. I like the variety of female characters that appear in these stories, and the small ordinary motions they go through that are, in fact, major life events to them. I felt like an insider, another inhabitant of their houses, rather than an outsider looking into a window. Though it may be pointed out Towers uses the trope of the literary daughter quite a lot, I did not feel this was truly repetitive (and I read all the stories in two days). An absolute pity she had not written more before her death.
April 3, 2018
Enchanting, charming and an unexpected find. Each story is quite sweet, but just prevented from being sickly by some sharply drawn characters and a sometimes creepy atmosphere. Towers has a gift in these tidy wrapped constructions of short stories. They were sometimes repetitive, but in the way an artist like Picasso may paint a woman, a bull, or a guitar on hundreds of canvases, but each so different. Was this theme and style Towers’ one trick? Or had she lived, would she have focussed obsessively on something else? Either way, what a delightful find!
February 6, 2016
This collection of short stories was wonderful, each like drinking a small glass of port. To quote the publisher Frances Towers "has the rare ability of the fine writer to recreate things to her own vision; so that, for a while after reading her stories, the world seems newly-minted and iridescent, charged with magical possibilities, an unfamiliar place, a different place to what it was before you read Frances Towers." If you like Jane Austen you'll love this book.
February 21, 2025
A collection of 10 short stories from 1949. Apart from a not very successful ghost story, these center mainly around the character of the overlooked female and her quiet inner life. Angus Wilson, in his afterword, calls it "the literary daughter", the dutiful girl who creeps away from the drawing-room tea table to record her observations in a secret diary while the other women talk about clothes.
And yes, we see this figure emerge in most of these stories. In "Violet" she's the dutiful daughter whose hopes for romance need to encouraged by the new maid, an outspoken hussy who somehow manipulates the household to make her own wishes come true. In "The Little Willow", the least vivacious of three sisters has her own little secret, unfulfilled romance. In "Don Juan and the Lily", a shy office worker finds out that the forbidding boss is human after all. And in "Tea with Mr Rochester", a dreamy schoolgirl has a crush on her glamorous aunt's male friend. This is a situation that could lead to heartbreak and disaster, but kindness prevails.
Many female readers, by definition, will be able to identify with these bookish introverts. The stories are also attractive because of the loving descriptions of interiors, gardens and flower bouquets. So the stories are a good mix of the soothing and the emotional.
So : enjoyable, but not memorable. And like all Persephone books, this book is a pleasure to hold and touch: nice paper, the characteristic simple grey design and the colorful endpaper.
And yes, we see this figure emerge in most of these stories. In "Violet" she's the dutiful daughter whose hopes for romance need to encouraged by the new maid, an outspoken hussy who somehow manipulates the household to make her own wishes come true. In "The Little Willow", the least vivacious of three sisters has her own little secret, unfulfilled romance. In "Don Juan and the Lily", a shy office worker finds out that the forbidding boss is human after all. And in "Tea with Mr Rochester", a dreamy schoolgirl has a crush on her glamorous aunt's male friend. This is a situation that could lead to heartbreak and disaster, but kindness prevails.
Many female readers, by definition, will be able to identify with these bookish introverts. The stories are also attractive because of the loving descriptions of interiors, gardens and flower bouquets. So the stories are a good mix of the soothing and the emotional.
So : enjoyable, but not memorable. And like all Persephone books, this book is a pleasure to hold and touch: nice paper, the characteristic simple grey design and the colorful endpaper.
May 26, 2025
A collection of fourteen charming, whimsical stories, most of which end happily but a few have ambivalent or sad endings. Most of the stories concern love. They are mostly set in ‘the present’, that is the 1920s-1940s,when they were written. But one of my favourites takes us back to the Elizabethan era and gives us a glimpse of Shakespeare, here unexpectedly acting as a matchmaker. There are a few unexpected twists in some of the stories, but all of them are interesting in their own way. Inevitably as with any short story collection I liked some better than others, but 4 stars is a reasonable average.
March 20, 2025
I loved these stories so much. I especially commend to you the title story, as well as "The Little Willow" and "Lucinda." I only wish this wonderful author had left more for us to read & savor.
April 7, 2024
I liked Violet and The Little Willow the best. Terrible that Frances Towers only ever published these stories, I loved her writing and would have loved a novel.
April 24, 2024
This is an old penguin book my parents owned NOT a Persephone press edition which every other Goodreader seems to be reviewing. I had no afterword and no foreword, my reading experience was, thus enhanced by not having to compare protagonists or draw completely unwarranted comparisons with Brontës or Austen.
As a collection, four stars individually rated below.
1) Violet *****
Was fascinating and creepy in that very specifically English domestic way of creepy. I actually got a Tanith Lee Elephantasm vibe from it, while it was incrementally more mainstream than Lee. A housemaid, Violet, is hired by Sophie without her mother's input. Violet ends up being a very proper maid, very helpful to Sophie herself and atentive to the man of the house and with a strange and slightly supernatural affect. End twist!
2) Tea with Mr Rochester ****
Remembering that this was published (and presumably written) in the 40's when little girls were not allowed to eat dinner/tea with the grownups when there were visitors. Though it was fine to dump them in boarding schools.
Apparently, in this era, Jane Eyre was not suitable reading for small girls but Prissie (the most 1940's adaptation of Priscila one can imagine) borrows a copy from “...the Ivth form library” and reads it in secret under her desk when she is meant to be studying Shakespeare a subterfuge that endeared her to me. In Prissie's head, Mr Rochester and the -to her- thrilling narration of Jane Eyre blend into her real life crush with a Mr Chinchester who is an acquaintance of her aunts.
I really enjoyed Prissie's strong inner world and the delightful descriptiveness of this story. I, personally, feel that the characterisation in this story leaves Bronte dead in the water.
3) Little Willow *****
A charming and dark little story of wartime. Perhaps it's central theme appears to be a secret love, but I think the most important theme is how concealed a family member can be behind the little boxes into which we pack people we think we know. And, ok, yes I did drop a tear at the ending; maybe I would not have if I was not in a covid fever. But, a charming story which again relies heavily on good characterisation, the inner world of the main character and beautiful writing.
4) Don Juan and the Lily *****
Here I first saw a glimpse of why the Persophany people kept comparing it to Austen. Here too - though of course in a different era – we have the question of what happens to a young woman of smaller means who does not marry. Now, of course in Austen there were no options, but here our main character is farmed out to work a very unfulfilling job as a clerk at the age of 19, since her mother does not consider here attractive enough to marry. There she meets the fascinating Miss Dellow.
5) The Rose in the Picture ***
Starts off with describing two very different persons with regard to their houses and homes. Again we have a central figure who (though seen in third party) is our vehicle for the story. Here I think we have a slightly more humourful, critical and ironic view of humankind than we had seen in the stories so far.
6) 'Twas Into Yellow Gold His Salt Green Stream' *
This one was a right wtf. The title is a Shakespeare quote, but an obscure one I had to google because it is never introduced NOR is the reason it is the title ever suggested.
It starts with the protagonist, a girl, at dinner where her parents are trying to marry her off but the whole thing felt wildly experimental. As though it was trying to be medieval one sentence, Shakespearean the next and skipping to contemporary 1940's without notice. The language was full of Shakespearean words (which I only realised when I finished it an googled the title. E'er tis hath prithee drip from the page like a water torture gone wrong. Eras are confused, actions are incomprehensible and I did not enjoy it a bit.
7) Spade Man From Over The Water *****
Two women who have been friends since moving into their new houses across from each other. Mrs Ashe is described through her hands and Mrs Penny is our POV (though in third person). I loved the way the ending kept you hanging - not sure what you had just read. Was it a psychological thriller ( al in Mrs Penny's head?), a mystery (What did Mrs Ashe know?) or a ghost story...
8) Strings in Hollow Shells ****
In this one, our main character is Sandra, a modish young woman who has just come down from London to stay in a country cottage she has known from Childhood with Mrs Prideux. In this one, a tactic Towers used before became really noticeable to me: When Sandra is thinking about herself she thinks of herself as 'One'. As in; 'one' does not want relationships... But doesn't she really?
There is a sense of self growth, because it starts with a very young, very self obsessed young woman who is a bit of a twit, starting to get a glimmering that other and other people outside her set are real too. The ending is, tbh a bit creepy to the modern reader though when it was written it was probably conceived as a happy ending and romantic.
9) The Chosen and the Rejected. ****
Four stars for acute weird value and a wholly unexpected ending that leaves you cliff hanging forever!
Lucy and Florence were school friends who kept in touch and at some stage decide to live together in a small cottage within their means. One gathers they are older now, one has a touch of grey over her forehead... They become friends with the fascinating Mr and Mrs Pryde of the local hall and the end is a real, subtle, twist and you should just read it for yourself.
10) Mrs Egerton ***
This is, I think the first one that had the protagonist a man, though concentrating as these stories do on the inner landscape, it does not make that much of a difference. Mr Duncan Chartres who is staying in Mrs Egerton's home because he met her husband moth hunting in Switzerland.... Which is so random, moth hunting? This is a delicately ironic story about being lost and adrift in life. Like many of Tower's characters Chartres is adrift and does not really know himself. The writing is beautiful in it. I totally related to the agony of trying to pain the unpaintable.
11) What Must Be, Shall Be. ****
A very poignant, very beautiful little not-love story. About the meeting of minds when the minds are engaged elsewhere. The ending is far from definite or traditional and one will always know that how it pans out will never be known to you, the reader.
“One' see there now I am doing it too.
12) Lucinda ***
This was the one I was most excited for, since it had the reputation of being a 'real' ghost story, with Lucinda, our main protagonist observing the family as a ghost. I even had an idea that I might have read it in another collection. But now I think not, it is a cute little biopic of characters with a very mild ghostie twist kind of fun.
13) The Keys of Heaven *****
I found it a disproportionately perfect little story. A story of two sisters one golden and beautiful who gets all the attention and receives it as her due. The other a bit ordinary – until someone truly sees her for herself.
14) The Golden Rose ****
Four stars, though probably deserves more, only by this stage in the collection I had such a clear image of where it was going. Again, beautifully written and very worthy final story.
In a sense the criticism that it is all one narrator is fair if not true: All the main characters are individuals who see more than they are seen, who have rich inner worlds of commentary about what they see and the people around them. The aspects of inner life though vary from story to story. In the last one, The Golden Rose, I feel we are privileged to finally see our main character from the outside, as Emmy sees her Aunt Essie.
Interesting historical perspectives abound, one is roses, you get a lot of both the scent of and vases full of. Another thing that really captured me was carnations; she mentions the spicy scent of them in several stories, and of course our modern carnations have mostly had all the scent bred out of them, so I was quite charmed with this reminisce.
Persephone Books appear to be the only online resource for this very nice little fiction collection. So, kudos to them for giving little known, or 'lost' authors a lift up. BUT it is really annoying how they keep comparing her with Jane Austen – two young English female authors who died young but that seems to be all Austen was 1775 – 1817 where Towers stories came from the 1940's between the wars. I would not in a month of Sundays call her style “Literary Realism' which is what Austen was primarily known for. Rather this is very much romanticism or even in places magical realism in places which Austen would have mocked.
Great little collection I do recommend as long as you do not try to read them too fast. They need time taken between stories to really give them due attention.
As a collection, four stars individually rated below.
1) Violet *****
Was fascinating and creepy in that very specifically English domestic way of creepy. I actually got a Tanith Lee Elephantasm vibe from it, while it was incrementally more mainstream than Lee. A housemaid, Violet, is hired by Sophie without her mother's input. Violet ends up being a very proper maid, very helpful to Sophie herself and atentive to the man of the house and with a strange and slightly supernatural affect. End twist!
2) Tea with Mr Rochester ****
Remembering that this was published (and presumably written) in the 40's when little girls were not allowed to eat dinner/tea with the grownups when there were visitors. Though it was fine to dump them in boarding schools.
Apparently, in this era, Jane Eyre was not suitable reading for small girls but Prissie (the most 1940's adaptation of Priscila one can imagine) borrows a copy from “...the Ivth form library” and reads it in secret under her desk when she is meant to be studying Shakespeare a subterfuge that endeared her to me. In Prissie's head, Mr Rochester and the -to her- thrilling narration of Jane Eyre blend into her real life crush with a Mr Chinchester who is an acquaintance of her aunts.
I really enjoyed Prissie's strong inner world and the delightful descriptiveness of this story. I, personally, feel that the characterisation in this story leaves Bronte dead in the water.
3) Little Willow *****
A charming and dark little story of wartime. Perhaps it's central theme appears to be a secret love, but I think the most important theme is how concealed a family member can be behind the little boxes into which we pack people we think we know. And, ok, yes I did drop a tear at the ending; maybe I would not have if I was not in a covid fever. But, a charming story which again relies heavily on good characterisation, the inner world of the main character and beautiful writing.
4) Don Juan and the Lily *****
Here I first saw a glimpse of why the Persophany people kept comparing it to Austen. Here too - though of course in a different era – we have the question of what happens to a young woman of smaller means who does not marry. Now, of course in Austen there were no options, but here our main character is farmed out to work a very unfulfilling job as a clerk at the age of 19, since her mother does not consider here attractive enough to marry. There she meets the fascinating Miss Dellow.
5) The Rose in the Picture ***
Starts off with describing two very different persons with regard to their houses and homes. Again we have a central figure who (though seen in third party) is our vehicle for the story. Here I think we have a slightly more humourful, critical and ironic view of humankind than we had seen in the stories so far.
6) 'Twas Into Yellow Gold His Salt Green Stream' *
This one was a right wtf. The title is a Shakespeare quote, but an obscure one I had to google because it is never introduced NOR is the reason it is the title ever suggested.
It starts with the protagonist, a girl, at dinner where her parents are trying to marry her off but the whole thing felt wildly experimental. As though it was trying to be medieval one sentence, Shakespearean the next and skipping to contemporary 1940's without notice. The language was full of Shakespearean words (which I only realised when I finished it an googled the title. E'er tis hath prithee drip from the page like a water torture gone wrong. Eras are confused, actions are incomprehensible and I did not enjoy it a bit.
7) Spade Man From Over The Water *****
Two women who have been friends since moving into their new houses across from each other. Mrs Ashe is described through her hands and Mrs Penny is our POV (though in third person). I loved the way the ending kept you hanging - not sure what you had just read. Was it a psychological thriller ( al in Mrs Penny's head?), a mystery (What did Mrs Ashe know?) or a ghost story...
8) Strings in Hollow Shells ****
In this one, our main character is Sandra, a modish young woman who has just come down from London to stay in a country cottage she has known from Childhood with Mrs Prideux. In this one, a tactic Towers used before became really noticeable to me: When Sandra is thinking about herself she thinks of herself as 'One'. As in; 'one' does not want relationships... But doesn't she really?
There is a sense of self growth, because it starts with a very young, very self obsessed young woman who is a bit of a twit, starting to get a glimmering that other and other people outside her set are real too. The ending is, tbh a bit creepy to the modern reader though when it was written it was probably conceived as a happy ending and romantic.
9) The Chosen and the Rejected. ****
Four stars for acute weird value and a wholly unexpected ending that leaves you cliff hanging forever!
Lucy and Florence were school friends who kept in touch and at some stage decide to live together in a small cottage within their means. One gathers they are older now, one has a touch of grey over her forehead... They become friends with the fascinating Mr and Mrs Pryde of the local hall and the end is a real, subtle, twist and you should just read it for yourself.
10) Mrs Egerton ***
This is, I think the first one that had the protagonist a man, though concentrating as these stories do on the inner landscape, it does not make that much of a difference. Mr Duncan Chartres who is staying in Mrs Egerton's home because he met her husband moth hunting in Switzerland.... Which is so random, moth hunting? This is a delicately ironic story about being lost and adrift in life. Like many of Tower's characters Chartres is adrift and does not really know himself. The writing is beautiful in it. I totally related to the agony of trying to pain the unpaintable.
11) What Must Be, Shall Be. ****
A very poignant, very beautiful little not-love story. About the meeting of minds when the minds are engaged elsewhere. The ending is far from definite or traditional and one will always know that how it pans out will never be known to you, the reader.
“One' see there now I am doing it too.
12) Lucinda ***
This was the one I was most excited for, since it had the reputation of being a 'real' ghost story, with Lucinda, our main protagonist observing the family as a ghost. I even had an idea that I might have read it in another collection. But now I think not, it is a cute little biopic of characters with a very mild ghostie twist kind of fun.
13) The Keys of Heaven *****
I found it a disproportionately perfect little story. A story of two sisters one golden and beautiful who gets all the attention and receives it as her due. The other a bit ordinary – until someone truly sees her for herself.
14) The Golden Rose ****
Four stars, though probably deserves more, only by this stage in the collection I had such a clear image of where it was going. Again, beautifully written and very worthy final story.
In a sense the criticism that it is all one narrator is fair if not true: All the main characters are individuals who see more than they are seen, who have rich inner worlds of commentary about what they see and the people around them. The aspects of inner life though vary from story to story. In the last one, The Golden Rose, I feel we are privileged to finally see our main character from the outside, as Emmy sees her Aunt Essie.
Interesting historical perspectives abound, one is roses, you get a lot of both the scent of and vases full of. Another thing that really captured me was carnations; she mentions the spicy scent of them in several stories, and of course our modern carnations have mostly had all the scent bred out of them, so I was quite charmed with this reminisce.
Persephone Books appear to be the only online resource for this very nice little fiction collection. So, kudos to them for giving little known, or 'lost' authors a lift up. BUT it is really annoying how they keep comparing her with Jane Austen – two young English female authors who died young but that seems to be all Austen was 1775 – 1817 where Towers stories came from the 1940's between the wars. I would not in a month of Sundays call her style “Literary Realism' which is what Austen was primarily known for. Rather this is very much romanticism or even in places magical realism in places which Austen would have mocked.
Great little collection I do recommend as long as you do not try to read them too fast. They need time taken between stories to really give them due attention.
January 14, 2017
In this collection of short stories, dreamy young women struggle to project their private luminescence onto the prosaic world.
When I read Derek Hudson's Classic English Short Stories, 1930-1955, I was startled to discover an assortment of good authors about whom I had never heard: Elizabeth Bowen, Nigel Kneale, Frances Towers.
Unfortunately, Derek Hudson apparently did an excellent job choosing the best story from each author, because their other work has been disappointing. I couldn't finish Bowen's The Last September or Kneale's Tomato Cain, and my successful completion of Towers' Tea with Mr Rochester took a great deal of grim perseverance. Towers does very fine secondary characters, and her writing is subtle and sharp -- and then a character will open his or her mouth, and the entire story falls apart. I don't think I have ever encountered such wooden, clunky, expository, heavy-handed, awful dialogue from an author who can, otherwise, write very well. The dialogue ruins nearly every story here; "The Golden Rose" is the only successful combination of exquisite observation and human-sounding conversations. Which is a pity -- if only you could render all of Towers' characters mute, her stories would be excellent.
When I read Derek Hudson's Classic English Short Stories, 1930-1955, I was startled to discover an assortment of good authors about whom I had never heard: Elizabeth Bowen, Nigel Kneale, Frances Towers.
Unfortunately, Derek Hudson apparently did an excellent job choosing the best story from each author, because their other work has been disappointing. I couldn't finish Bowen's The Last September or Kneale's Tomato Cain, and my successful completion of Towers' Tea with Mr Rochester took a great deal of grim perseverance. Towers does very fine secondary characters, and her writing is subtle and sharp -- and then a character will open his or her mouth, and the entire story falls apart. I don't think I have ever encountered such wooden, clunky, expository, heavy-handed, awful dialogue from an author who can, otherwise, write very well. The dialogue ruins nearly every story here; "The Golden Rose" is the only successful combination of exquisite observation and human-sounding conversations. Which is a pity -- if only you could render all of Towers' characters mute, her stories would be excellent.
March 14, 2009
Each of these stories offers a definition or mood of love - unrequited, manipulative, breathless and giddy, jealous....
As with any collection of short stories, there are weaker and stronger offerings. However, all are well written and worth the read.
Below highlights several of my favorite.
Violet: I read this story first in a collation of Angela Carter's. This reading, in this particular collection, Violet explored for me love's manipulation of the beloved and left me haunted by my own actions with regard to those I love.
Tea with Mr. Rochester: Explores the obsessive quality of love - here quite innocently portrayed as the first crush of a school girl. Towers captures the humiliation, breathless anticipation and single-minded devotion of our first, often inappropriate, romantic obsession.
Spade Man from over the Water: Describes the subtle ways in which we betray ourselves in and for love. The emotional bonds of friendship between women are, often, stronger than those between husband and wife. "Spade Man" flirts with the idea that a woman can have an adulterous relationship with her closest woman friend.
As with any collection of short stories, there are weaker and stronger offerings. However, all are well written and worth the read.
Below highlights several of my favorite.
Violet: I read this story first in a collation of Angela Carter's. This reading, in this particular collection, Violet explored for me love's manipulation of the beloved and left me haunted by my own actions with regard to those I love.
Tea with Mr. Rochester: Explores the obsessive quality of love - here quite innocently portrayed as the first crush of a school girl. Towers captures the humiliation, breathless anticipation and single-minded devotion of our first, often inappropriate, romantic obsession.
Spade Man from over the Water: Describes the subtle ways in which we betray ourselves in and for love. The emotional bonds of friendship between women are, often, stronger than those between husband and wife. "Spade Man" flirts with the idea that a woman can have an adulterous relationship with her closest woman friend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2016
When I first pick up this book I thought this was a novella. So it took a minute to figure out that it was short stories. I general don’t like reading short story, I have a tenancy to not finish them. This one I did finish and it is a gem.
My favorite stories were Tea with Mr. Rochester, The Little Willow and Strings in Hollow Shells. Some of the stories had a magical and dream quality, some were endearing and other just a bit dramatic and silly. What I enjoy about her stories is the setting of the scene. They seem just as much as a character as the characters themselves. Like the discerption of the Hartwell House in Rose in the Picture, or the smoky light to highlight the character in The Chosen and the Rejected. It seems import to the writer that the scene was just as important as the characters. It is too bad this was the only book published by Frances Towers. It would have been nice to see how she would have written a novel. So I would say give it a try even if you are not a big fan of short stories.
My favorite stories were Tea with Mr. Rochester, The Little Willow and Strings in Hollow Shells. Some of the stories had a magical and dream quality, some were endearing and other just a bit dramatic and silly. What I enjoy about her stories is the setting of the scene. They seem just as much as a character as the characters themselves. Like the discerption of the Hartwell House in Rose in the Picture, or the smoky light to highlight the character in The Chosen and the Rejected. It seems import to the writer that the scene was just as important as the characters. It is too bad this was the only book published by Frances Towers. It would have been nice to see how she would have written a novel. So I would say give it a try even if you are not a big fan of short stories.
June 7, 2018
Sometimes a collection of short stories takes me awhile to read, this was not one of those!! I have had my eye on this book from Persephone’s for at least 2 years now, and I finally got to go to the shop two weeks ago! I really enjoy the literary metaphors and the descriptions are beautiful, but Towers has a way of writing that has you go: “..did.. did I skip a page?” Often the story would jump and you would feel confused of where the characters are now, how much time had passed, and how did these two characters meet. The lack of background, time, and setting is discombobulating, but not too distracting from enjoying it! If you have the pleasure of going to Persephone’s Book, definitely give this book a try!
March 20, 2016
A book of gems, luminous stories of men and women and their loves and near-misses. Frances Towers writes beautifully, with brilliant visual images and tender heartfelt twists in each story. I loved the story of Violet, the new maid who says 'things happen' when she is employed. 'Tea with Mr. Rochester' clearly speaks to anyone who has had a first love or deep abiding crush.
Thanks to Persephone Publishing who unearths these gems and polishes them for us to enjoy!
"Sometimes a word or rwo of the dream-conversations survived the night. They made nonsense in the light of day; but had a magical sound--key words to some tremendous secret." ("The Keys of Heaven")
Thanks to Persephone Publishing who unearths these gems and polishes them for us to enjoy!
"Sometimes a word or rwo of the dream-conversations survived the night. They made nonsense in the light of day; but had a magical sound--key words to some tremendous secret." ("The Keys of Heaven")
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