Vivians

by Molly Hughes, M.V. Hughes

In her autobiographical trilogy - A London Child of the 1870s, A London Girl of the 1880s, and A London Home in the 1890s - Molly Hughes vividly recalled the scenes and events of her childhood and early adult years. In Vivians she goes back a generation to tell the story of her mother, Mary Vivian, and her beloved Aunt Tony, the elder daughters of a manager of Cornish tin mines.Mary was the charmer of the family. Beautiful, intelligent and mischievous, fearless in the hunting field and outspoken in the drawing-room, she became the belle of the district. Tony was plainer and less impulsive, but her warmth and strength of character endeared her to everyone she met.Vivians records the details of their daily life and their adventurous journeys to Paris, to the fjords of Norway, and to Spain, where Mary narrowly escaped capture by bandits. It also has a romantic tale to tell - of Tony's love affair, which ended so tragically, and of Mary's disastrous first marriage before she settled down happily with Molly's father. There is more than enough in this picture of life in mid-nineteenth-century Cornwall to charm any reader.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Victorian, British Literature, 19th Century, Memoir

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

Mary Vivian Hughes, usually known as Molly Hughes and also published under M.V. Hughes, was a British educator and author.

The daughter of a London stockbroker, she was born Mary Thomas and passed most of her childhood in Canonbury, under the watchful eyes of four older brothers. Her father, a modestly successful stockbroker, became caught up in a financial scandal and committed suicide in 1879.

She attended the North London Collegiate School and a Cambridge teachers' training college, and was later awarded her BA in London.

As head of the training department at Bedford College from 1892 until 1897, she played an important role in expanding and rationalizing the teacher training curriculum. Molly Thomas married barrister-at-law Arthur Hughes (1857–1918) from Garneddwen in 1897, after an engagement of nearly ten years; they had one daughter and three sons. After her husband's death, she returned to work as an educational inspector. Her first book, About England, was published in 1927. She died in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1956.

Hughes is best known for a series of four lively memoirs, A London Child of the 1870s, A London Girl of the 1880s, A London Home in the 1890s, and A London Family Between the Wars. Hughes's stated purpose in these books is "to show that Victorian children did not have such a dull time as is usually supposed." Her books are a valuable source on women's education and women's work in the late Victorian period; in particular, A London Girl of the 1880s provides an unparalleled portrait of life in a Victorian women's college. Some of Hughes's books are illustrated by her own drawings and her brother Charles's paintings.

Reviews

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

After writing her own autobiography beginning with A London Child of the 1870s, Molly Hughes wrote this account of her mother's generation. Her mother Mary and aunt Tony's surprising stories are told with vividness and compassion from Molly's access to letters and the reminiscences of both of them - her mother telling her the details of Tony's lovelife and vice versa.

There were many tragedies in their story but for girls who must have been born around 1830 the two sisters had amazingly adventurous lives. They grew up in Cornwall but managed to see a lot of the world. Mary travelled on horseback through Spain with her tin-mine-owning father and a clerk; the two sisters went to Norway to visit friends accompanied only by a younger brother, still a boy; Mary went to Paris to stay with cousins, apparently alone. Perhaps they had servants with them but even so, for young Englishwomen in the mid-19th century this must have been unusual.

The second half of the book paints a rather less rosy picture of Mary's later life than A London Child of the 1870s and A London Girl of the 1880s and the book ends abruptly with an unresolved question - as life so often does.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This charming book recounts stories from the lives of Molly Hughes' mother, Mary, and her mother's sister, Aunt Tony, from their mid-18th century Cornish childhoods to Mary's horseback trip in Spain with her father, to their year long visit to Norway, on through the happinesses and sadnesses of their lives. Toward the end of the book, Molly herself appears as a character and adds her own memories, and the stories take an unexpected turn, revealing an old secret and hinting at others.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 3 out of 5]

After having read Molly's "A London Child of the Seventies" it was a treat (thank you, Bettie) to be able to go back even further into her history and that of her mother and Aunt. Molly discovers things about her mother that she had never known - an interesting take on the whole not-talking-about-the-regrettable-past attitude of the time. Molly's Aunt Tony answers the question, "Why all this hiding up things?" with this - "You see, if once you begin to tell things a lot of the past may come up that is best forgotten, and then people may imagine other things that aren't true." Hmmmm. She then goes on to say she doesn't know why Molly's father was crossing the train tracks on the day he was killed ( he committed suicide). Molly would have much preferred the truth all along, it seems, seeing that she chose to write about it.

Anyway, interesting people. Worth reading.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always been a fan of Molly Hughes other autobiographical books, rereading them from time to time. This book is like the key to all of them - I can't believe it took me twenty years to discover it and read it. If you've become interested in Molly, her people in Cornwall, and their unconventional doings of nearly 200 years ago, it's worth waiting for your library to track down a copy on their inter-library system. The first half of this book is a memoir of her mother and beloved Aunt Tony as young women and of their lively family home, Reskadinnick. But then the second half has unexpected twists and discoveries, and secrets revealed concerning her family that I always wondered about after reading her childhood memoir. I agree with another reviewer: interesting people. Worthwhile reading.

[Darla Ebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writers of the 19th century had such a narrow but meaningful slant on life. Somehow they pack so much into a small package. Loved the story of the growing up years of the author's mother and the mother's sister