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Emily Fox-Seton #1-2
La formación de una marquesa
Esta singular novela de Frances Hodgson Burnett, una de las favoritas de Nancy Mirford, empieza como La Cenicienta y termina como Rebeca. Emily Fox-Seton, que se gana la vida haciendo encargos para las damas de la alta sociedad y vive –a sus treinta y cuatro años– en una pensión de tercera categoría, cautiva contra todo pronóstico a uno de los mejores partidos de toda Inglaterra, el marqués de Walderhurst. El marqués no es un hombre romántico: «No tengo disposición al matrimonio –le dice– pero tengo que casarme, y usted me gusta más que cualquier mujer que haya conocido». Una vez instalados en la gran mansión de Palstrey Manor, Emily tendrá ocasión de conocer la otra cara del final feliz: no contaba con que se ha interpuesto en los planes de unos siniestros parientes de su marido venidos de la India, que esperaban heredar.
344 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1901
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6508 people want to read
About the author
Frances Hodgson Burnett
1,487 books4,979 followersFrances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911).
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1853, when Frances was 4 years old, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the United States, settling in New Market, Tennessee. Frances began her writing career there at age 19 to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines. In 1870, her mother died. In Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1873 she married Swan M. Burnett, who became a medical doctor. Their first son Lionel was born a year later. The Burnetts lived for two years in Paris, where their second son Vivian was born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington, D.C. Burnett then began to write novels, the first of which (That Lass o' Lowrie's), was published to good reviews. Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886 and made her a popular writer of children's fiction, although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess.
Beginning in the 1880s, Burnett began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her elder son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1890, which caused a relapse of the depression she had struggled with for much of her life. She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898, married Stephen Townesend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. A few years later she settled in Nassau County, New York, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery.
In 1936, a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honor in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters, Mary and Dickon.
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1853, when Frances was 4 years old, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the United States, settling in New Market, Tennessee. Frances began her writing career there at age 19 to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines. In 1870, her mother died. In Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1873 she married Swan M. Burnett, who became a medical doctor. Their first son Lionel was born a year later. The Burnetts lived for two years in Paris, where their second son Vivian was born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington, D.C. Burnett then began to write novels, the first of which (That Lass o' Lowrie's), was published to good reviews. Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886 and made her a popular writer of children's fiction, although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess.
Beginning in the 1880s, Burnett began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her elder son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1890, which caused a relapse of the depression she had struggled with for much of her life. She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898, married Stephen Townesend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. A few years later she settled in Nassau County, New York, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery.
In 1936, a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honor in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters, Mary and Dickon.
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October 21, 2025
WARNING: This story was published in 1901 and the 2nd half (originally printed separately as The Methods of Lady Walderhurst) contains elements of casual and matter-of-fact racism that was a product of its time but offends the modern reader.
********************************
I have been contemplating for some time the rating for this book. I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars, but in the end I decided on 4 because my enjoyment of the book actually far outweighs my original bewilderment about the curious way Frances Hodgson Burnett mixed her genres.
The plot is a crossover between a comedy of manners along the lines of a rags-to-riches story with a clear criticism of Victorian society and a Gothic novel (though with certainly less melodrama). However while the plot appeared shaky sometimes, the characterisation is excellent and succinct and that carries the day for me in any book.
The main character of the novel is Emily Fox-Seton, an impoverished lady of impeccable character, birth, manners and a universal goodwill towards mankind. She is a 34-year-old spinster, has hardly anything to live on, dwells in a boarding house (though thankfully with an incredibly kind landlady and her daughter) and tries to make ends meet by acting as a kind of secretary-cum-lady-in-waiting for rich, aristocratic ladies. She is kind and humble and happy in her own way (apart from the existential anxiety) and translates the high ladies' condescension and patronage as kindness towards herself. She also lacks the finesse and ruthlessness that drive many/most of her contemporaries and her "survival" under such social and pecuniary circumstances seems doubtful, to say the least.
One of her patronesses, the Lady Maria Bayne is a selfish, but wickedly witty and entertaining old lady.
"Lady Maria Bayne was the cleverest, sharpest-tongued, smartest old woman in London. She knew everybody and had done everything in her youth, a good many things not considered highly proper. A certain royal duke had been much pleased with her and people had said some very nasty things about it. But this had not hurt Lady Maria. She knew how to say nasty things herself, and as she said them wittily they were usually listened to and repeated."
Lady M invites Emily to her estate for a week and charges her to help with the arrangements of parties, dinners and the village fete. Emily is happy to comply with her wishes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she has to do everything.
The "pinnacle" of the present party is the presence of Lady Maria's nephew, the elderly, widowed & rich Marquis, Lord Walderhurst, who has matrimonial plans and may choose a bride among the lady guests.
"Walderhurst is coming to me. It always amuses me to have Walderhurst. The moment a man like that comes into a room the women begin to frisk about and swim and languish, except those who try to get up interesting conversations they think likely to attract his attention. They all think it is possible that he may marry them. If he were a Mormon he might have marchionesses of Walderhurst of all shapes and sizes.”
And the million-dollar question is of course: WHOM WILL HE CHOOSE AS HIS MARCHIONESS?
There are 3 likely candidates, summed up by Lady M with perfect insight and precision:
1) Mrs Ralph, a clever authoress:
“Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business. She’ll corner Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates her. These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them. Walderhurst won’t be ogled."
2) Miss Cora Brooke, an American heiress
"The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She was very sharp this afternoon. She began at once.” “I—I didn’t see her”—wondering. “Yes, you did; but you didn’t understand. The tennis, and the laughing with young Heriot on the terrace! She is going to be the piquant young woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour; the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes—but not out of them."
3) Lady Agatha Slade, a society beauty
"Now there is Agatha Slade, poor girl! She’s of a kind I know by heart. With birth and beauty, she is perfectly helpless. Her people are poor enough to be entitled to aid from the Charity Organisation, and they have had the indecency to present themselves with six daughters—six! All with delicate skins and delicate little noses and heavenly eyes. Most men can’t afford them, and they can’t afford most men."
Under the pretext of this seemingly lighthearted situation, we are dealt some harsh truths about the helplessness of women who are exposed either socially or financially or both.
It is disheartening to learn that Agatha is not only pressured by society, but by her mother and by her younger sisters as well to find a husband or leave the social scene so that she can make way for them.
Also Emily's bleak situation, despite her infinite goodness, is staring at us in the face rather nastily. The author disguises it under the veil of some flippant and funny remarks, but it is clear that she intended this veil to be very transparent.
The girl had received a long, anxious letter from her mother, in which much was said of the importance of an early preparation for the presentation of Alix, who had really been kept back a year, and was in fact nearer twenty than nineteen. “If we were not in Debrett and Burke, one might be reserved about such matters,” poor Lady Claraway wrote; “but what is one to do when all the world can buy one’s daughters’ ages at the booksellers’?”
"They had both had hard lives, and knew what lay before them. Agatha knew she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and narrowed dulness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of desirable marriage at all. She was too poor, too entirely unsupported by social surroundings, and not sufficiently radiant to catch the roving eye."
*SPOILER WARNING* from here on, I will more explicitly discuss characters and for that the plot must be more or less revealed.
Of course, there are some implications that none of the 3 candidates will succeed in their attempts to catch His Lordship and F.H.B. rather nicely and credibly develops the relationship between Emily and James in the background. Neither of them are young, but the feelings they have for each other are solid, realistic & convincing and in a way they touched me deeper than any passion & romance could have done.
“I am not a marrying man,” said his lordship, “but I must marry, and I like you better than any woman I have ever known. I do not generally like women. I am a selfish man, and I want an unselfish woman. Most women are as selfish as I am myself. I used to like you when I heard Maria speak of you. I have watched you and thought of you ever since I came here. You are necessary to every one, and you are so modest that you know nothing about it."
“I want a companion.” “But I am so far from clever,” faltered Emily. The marquis turned in his driving-seat to look at her. It was really a very nice look he gave her. It made Emily’s cheeks grow pink and her simple heart beat. “You are the woman I want,” he said. “You make me feel quite sentimental.”
It started actually with Lord Walderhurst's ambiguous characterisation when I had the feeling that something was a bit off-kilter. I found the author's treatment of the marquis somewhat off-putting. It was like she could not make up her mind about him. (Considering that by the time she was writing this novel, her 2nd marriage was dissolving, perhaps this is no great wonder)
In one way he represents the ultimate upper-class Victorian MAN and while F.H.B. endowed him with some positive qualities, she kept wavering between respect and mild contempt where he was concerned.
She kept dropping positive statements about him in one moment just to counteract it in the next.
Lord Walderhurst reminded me quite a lot of Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Stiff, patriarchal, dignified, self-absorbed, but intelligent with an inherent moral code and decency. I felt rather sorry for him for the way his author treated him & to me he appeared a positive character despite F.H.B.'s attempts to belittle him.
For example it is clear to him almost from the start that Lady Maria uses Emily for her own purposes unashamedly & tells her so.
“He is an interesting creature, to my mind,” she said. “I have always rather liked him. He has original ideas, though he is not in the least brilliant. I believe he talks more freely to me, on the whole, than to most people, though I can’t say he has a particularly good opinion of me. He stuck his glass in his eye and stared at me last night, in that weird way of his, and said to me, ‘Maria, in an ingenuous fashion of your own, you are the most abominably selfish woman I ever beheld.’
After the fete, it is him that makes Lady M's guests and the whole village to acknowledge Emily's work.
"Lord Walderhurst stood near Lady Maria and looked pleased also. Emily saw him speak to her ladyship and saw Lady Maria smile. Then he stepped forward, with his noncommittal air and his monocle glaring calmly in his eye. “Boys and girls,” he said in a clear, far-reaching voice, “I want you to give three of the biggest cheers you are capable of for the lady who has worked to make your treat the success it has been. Her ladyship tells me she has never had such a treat before. Three cheers for Miss Fox-Seton.”
However, despite the constantly implied criticism of Lord W, F.H.B. manages the development of their relationship and their marriage rather beautifully and elegantly and reaches a kind of balance in the very touching end which I hope made her as happy as her characters!
Concerning the Gothic element in the the 2nd part of the story, suffice to say that Catherine Moreland and Isabella Thorpe from Northanger Abbey would have enjoyed it, though probably would not have found it horrid enough.
********************************
I have been contemplating for some time the rating for this book. I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars, but in the end I decided on 4 because my enjoyment of the book actually far outweighs my original bewilderment about the curious way Frances Hodgson Burnett mixed her genres.
The plot is a crossover between a comedy of manners along the lines of a rags-to-riches story with a clear criticism of Victorian society and a Gothic novel (though with certainly less melodrama). However while the plot appeared shaky sometimes, the characterisation is excellent and succinct and that carries the day for me in any book.
The main character of the novel is Emily Fox-Seton, an impoverished lady of impeccable character, birth, manners and a universal goodwill towards mankind. She is a 34-year-old spinster, has hardly anything to live on, dwells in a boarding house (though thankfully with an incredibly kind landlady and her daughter) and tries to make ends meet by acting as a kind of secretary-cum-lady-in-waiting for rich, aristocratic ladies. She is kind and humble and happy in her own way (apart from the existential anxiety) and translates the high ladies' condescension and patronage as kindness towards herself. She also lacks the finesse and ruthlessness that drive many/most of her contemporaries and her "survival" under such social and pecuniary circumstances seems doubtful, to say the least.
One of her patronesses, the Lady Maria Bayne is a selfish, but wickedly witty and entertaining old lady.
"Lady Maria Bayne was the cleverest, sharpest-tongued, smartest old woman in London. She knew everybody and had done everything in her youth, a good many things not considered highly proper. A certain royal duke had been much pleased with her and people had said some very nasty things about it. But this had not hurt Lady Maria. She knew how to say nasty things herself, and as she said them wittily they were usually listened to and repeated."
Lady M invites Emily to her estate for a week and charges her to help with the arrangements of parties, dinners and the village fete. Emily is happy to comply with her wishes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she has to do everything.
The "pinnacle" of the present party is the presence of Lady Maria's nephew, the elderly, widowed & rich Marquis, Lord Walderhurst, who has matrimonial plans and may choose a bride among the lady guests.
"Walderhurst is coming to me. It always amuses me to have Walderhurst. The moment a man like that comes into a room the women begin to frisk about and swim and languish, except those who try to get up interesting conversations they think likely to attract his attention. They all think it is possible that he may marry them. If he were a Mormon he might have marchionesses of Walderhurst of all shapes and sizes.”
And the million-dollar question is of course: WHOM WILL HE CHOOSE AS HIS MARCHIONESS?
There are 3 likely candidates, summed up by Lady M with perfect insight and precision:
1) Mrs Ralph, a clever authoress:
“Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business. She’ll corner Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates her. These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them. Walderhurst won’t be ogled."
2) Miss Cora Brooke, an American heiress
"The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She was very sharp this afternoon. She began at once.” “I—I didn’t see her”—wondering. “Yes, you did; but you didn’t understand. The tennis, and the laughing with young Heriot on the terrace! She is going to be the piquant young woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour; the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes—but not out of them."
3) Lady Agatha Slade, a society beauty
"Now there is Agatha Slade, poor girl! She’s of a kind I know by heart. With birth and beauty, she is perfectly helpless. Her people are poor enough to be entitled to aid from the Charity Organisation, and they have had the indecency to present themselves with six daughters—six! All with delicate skins and delicate little noses and heavenly eyes. Most men can’t afford them, and they can’t afford most men."
Under the pretext of this seemingly lighthearted situation, we are dealt some harsh truths about the helplessness of women who are exposed either socially or financially or both.
It is disheartening to learn that Agatha is not only pressured by society, but by her mother and by her younger sisters as well to find a husband or leave the social scene so that she can make way for them.
Also Emily's bleak situation, despite her infinite goodness, is staring at us in the face rather nastily. The author disguises it under the veil of some flippant and funny remarks, but it is clear that she intended this veil to be very transparent.
The girl had received a long, anxious letter from her mother, in which much was said of the importance of an early preparation for the presentation of Alix, who had really been kept back a year, and was in fact nearer twenty than nineteen. “If we were not in Debrett and Burke, one might be reserved about such matters,” poor Lady Claraway wrote; “but what is one to do when all the world can buy one’s daughters’ ages at the booksellers’?”
"They had both had hard lives, and knew what lay before them. Agatha knew she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and narrowed dulness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of desirable marriage at all. She was too poor, too entirely unsupported by social surroundings, and not sufficiently radiant to catch the roving eye."
*SPOILER WARNING* from here on, I will more explicitly discuss characters and for that the plot must be more or less revealed.
Of course, there are some implications that none of the 3 candidates will succeed in their attempts to catch His Lordship and F.H.B. rather nicely and credibly develops the relationship between Emily and James in the background. Neither of them are young, but the feelings they have for each other are solid, realistic & convincing and in a way they touched me deeper than any passion & romance could have done.
“I am not a marrying man,” said his lordship, “but I must marry, and I like you better than any woman I have ever known. I do not generally like women. I am a selfish man, and I want an unselfish woman. Most women are as selfish as I am myself. I used to like you when I heard Maria speak of you. I have watched you and thought of you ever since I came here. You are necessary to every one, and you are so modest that you know nothing about it."
“I want a companion.” “But I am so far from clever,” faltered Emily. The marquis turned in his driving-seat to look at her. It was really a very nice look he gave her. It made Emily’s cheeks grow pink and her simple heart beat. “You are the woman I want,” he said. “You make me feel quite sentimental.”
It started actually with Lord Walderhurst's ambiguous characterisation when I had the feeling that something was a bit off-kilter. I found the author's treatment of the marquis somewhat off-putting. It was like she could not make up her mind about him. (Considering that by the time she was writing this novel, her 2nd marriage was dissolving, perhaps this is no great wonder)
In one way he represents the ultimate upper-class Victorian MAN and while F.H.B. endowed him with some positive qualities, she kept wavering between respect and mild contempt where he was concerned.
She kept dropping positive statements about him in one moment just to counteract it in the next.
Lord Walderhurst reminded me quite a lot of Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Stiff, patriarchal, dignified, self-absorbed, but intelligent with an inherent moral code and decency. I felt rather sorry for him for the way his author treated him & to me he appeared a positive character despite F.H.B.'s attempts to belittle him.
For example it is clear to him almost from the start that Lady Maria uses Emily for her own purposes unashamedly & tells her so.
“He is an interesting creature, to my mind,” she said. “I have always rather liked him. He has original ideas, though he is not in the least brilliant. I believe he talks more freely to me, on the whole, than to most people, though I can’t say he has a particularly good opinion of me. He stuck his glass in his eye and stared at me last night, in that weird way of his, and said to me, ‘Maria, in an ingenuous fashion of your own, you are the most abominably selfish woman I ever beheld.’
After the fete, it is him that makes Lady M's guests and the whole village to acknowledge Emily's work.
"Lord Walderhurst stood near Lady Maria and looked pleased also. Emily saw him speak to her ladyship and saw Lady Maria smile. Then he stepped forward, with his noncommittal air and his monocle glaring calmly in his eye. “Boys and girls,” he said in a clear, far-reaching voice, “I want you to give three of the biggest cheers you are capable of for the lady who has worked to make your treat the success it has been. Her ladyship tells me she has never had such a treat before. Three cheers for Miss Fox-Seton.”
However, despite the constantly implied criticism of Lord W, F.H.B. manages the development of their relationship and their marriage rather beautifully and elegantly and reaches a kind of balance in the very touching end which I hope made her as happy as her characters!
Concerning the Gothic element in the the 2nd part of the story, suffice to say that Catherine Moreland and Isabella Thorpe from Northanger Abbey would have enjoyed it, though probably would not have found it horrid enough.
May 6, 2015
Part one: sweet love story, the commoner gets the prince sort of thing, Kate and William.
Part two: embarrassingly bad Gothic horror rubbish.
Subtotal, a book that deteriorates considerably until it finally ended and I could breathe a sigh of relief from such a dreadful potboiler.
Bonus one: It is short.
Bonus two: It was made into a tv movie, "The Making of a lady" which also starts off good then ditto.
Total: Save your money and buy a box of Milk Tray, eat all the chocolates you like the best and then, in one sitting, finish up all the rest of the them. Same effect.
(Brush your teeth. Strong minty toothpaste or mouthwash advised).
Part two: embarrassingly bad Gothic horror rubbish.
Subtotal, a book that deteriorates considerably until it finally ended and I could breathe a sigh of relief from such a dreadful potboiler.
Bonus one: It is short.
Bonus two: It was made into a tv movie, "The Making of a lady" which also starts off good then ditto.
Total: Save your money and buy a box of Milk Tray, eat all the chocolates you like the best and then, in one sitting, finish up all the rest of the them. Same effect.
(Brush your teeth. Strong minty toothpaste or mouthwash advised).
August 23, 2020
I don’t know why I ordered this book. I usually have notes in my TBR list regarding what prompted me to pursue a certain book. So I cannot give my sincerest thanks to whomever reviewed this book and influenced my decision. What a wonderful book! 😊
This was from Persephone Books (London). I might as well read every book in their collection… I put this publishing house on the same level as the New York Review of Books.
Frances Hodgson Burnett was a prolific author and famous in her day (late 19th century and early 20th century) — Gladstone (Prime Minister of England for 12 years) admired her and Henry James referred to her as a colleague. I guess the books that most people recall from her oeuvre are The Secret Garden (1911) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886). Supposedly “Making of a Marchioness” faded into obscurity. But like so many books that do that, thank goodness there are people out there that realize that such a book as this needs to see the light of day again. I read this in one sitting and I couldn’t put it down and my stomach was in knots because I was worried as to what would happen to the Marchioness of Walderhurst, formerly Emily Fox-Seton who when we first meet her rents a bedsitting room. There were people who would like to see this sweet guileless woman dead… I don’t think Emily had a mean bone in her body. Plus she was with child (as people were plotting her demise)! 😲 I am still recovering from my knotted stomach.
Part One of this book came out in June, July and August of 1901 as installments in a periodical, The Cornhill — the book ends at the point where Lord Walderhurst proposes to her. Burnett enjoyed her character so much (as she says, “You know things would inevitably happen to dear Emily when she became a Marchioness…”) she wrote a second book, The Methods of Lady Walderhurst (Frederick A. Stokes Company, University Press, John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A., 1901), taking up where she left off after the proposal. At this point she realized the two books should be combined, but it is not clear to me when the two books were actually published as one…there is an edition in 1967 by Stein and Day, New York, 1967 labeled as the first American Edition. Anyway, the edition I have is from Persephone Books (Reprinted 2005 and 2009) and combine Part One with Part Two (although the two are clearly delineated and still labeled as ‘parts’), and is simply titled as “The Making of a Marchioness”.
A marchioness is the wife of a marquess, which in turn is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages.
There are two words I had to look up when reading this book: ‘pellucid’ as in ‘Emily had a pellucid mind’ (translucently clear) and ‘cavilled’ as in “…cavilled at such opinions”. It means ‘made petty or unnecessary objections’.
I am anxious to read GR reviews. Reviews from bloggers leaned towards hating it. ☹
Reviews:
https://thebookbindersdaughter.com/20...
From here on in all these bloggers either have problems with the book or just plain flat out hate the book…yeesh!
• http://projectgutenbergproject.blogsp...
• https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• https://thenobbylife.wordpress.com/20...
• https://thecaptivereader.com/2010/01/...
This was from Persephone Books (London). I might as well read every book in their collection… I put this publishing house on the same level as the New York Review of Books.
Frances Hodgson Burnett was a prolific author and famous in her day (late 19th century and early 20th century) — Gladstone (Prime Minister of England for 12 years) admired her and Henry James referred to her as a colleague. I guess the books that most people recall from her oeuvre are The Secret Garden (1911) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886). Supposedly “Making of a Marchioness” faded into obscurity. But like so many books that do that, thank goodness there are people out there that realize that such a book as this needs to see the light of day again. I read this in one sitting and I couldn’t put it down and my stomach was in knots because I was worried as to what would happen to the Marchioness of Walderhurst, formerly Emily Fox-Seton who when we first meet her rents a bedsitting room. There were people who would like to see this sweet guileless woman dead… I don’t think Emily had a mean bone in her body. Plus she was with child (as people were plotting her demise)! 😲 I am still recovering from my knotted stomach.
Part One of this book came out in June, July and August of 1901 as installments in a periodical, The Cornhill — the book ends at the point where Lord Walderhurst proposes to her. Burnett enjoyed her character so much (as she says, “You know things would inevitably happen to dear Emily when she became a Marchioness…”) she wrote a second book, The Methods of Lady Walderhurst (Frederick A. Stokes Company, University Press, John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A., 1901), taking up where she left off after the proposal. At this point she realized the two books should be combined, but it is not clear to me when the two books were actually published as one…there is an edition in 1967 by Stein and Day, New York, 1967 labeled as the first American Edition. Anyway, the edition I have is from Persephone Books (Reprinted 2005 and 2009) and combine Part One with Part Two (although the two are clearly delineated and still labeled as ‘parts’), and is simply titled as “The Making of a Marchioness”.
A marchioness is the wife of a marquess, which in turn is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages.
There are two words I had to look up when reading this book: ‘pellucid’ as in ‘Emily had a pellucid mind’ (translucently clear) and ‘cavilled’ as in “…cavilled at such opinions”. It means ‘made petty or unnecessary objections’.
I am anxious to read GR reviews. Reviews from bloggers leaned towards hating it. ☹
Reviews:
https://thebookbindersdaughter.com/20...
From here on in all these bloggers either have problems with the book or just plain flat out hate the book…yeesh!
• http://projectgutenbergproject.blogsp...
• https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• https://thenobbylife.wordpress.com/20...
• https://thecaptivereader.com/2010/01/...
October 2, 2020
I am always impressed by Burnett's ability to write sweet stories without being twee or saccharine. This is what Edith Wharton would write on anti-depressants.
Edited to add on 5/16/19: Goodreads tells me I have read this 11 times. It might very well be even more than that, because I find myself going back to this story again and again, and every time I just intend to reread one of my favorite scenes, and every time I find myself reading the whole thing. I do tend to skip the particularly racist bits in the middle/end that feature Ameerah the deadly native. After many rereads I do find this rather more saccharine than before, but listen, I have a sweet tooth.
Edited to add on 5/16/19: Goodreads tells me I have read this 11 times. It might very well be even more than that, because I find myself going back to this story again and again, and every time I just intend to reread one of my favorite scenes, and every time I find myself reading the whole thing. I do tend to skip the particularly racist bits in the middle/end that feature Ameerah the deadly native. After many rereads I do find this rather more saccharine than before, but listen, I have a sweet tooth.
May 22, 2022
Emily Fox-Sitton is a scion of a side branch of a noble family, by origin belonging to the best English surnames, is poor. She is an orphan and from the fate of a servant, a governess (or worse) the only thing that saved her was that her first job was caring for a picky elderly lady. However, Miss Fox-Sitton's diligence, quickness, and benevolence melted this heart of stone and, according to the will, the lady wrote her several hundred pounds along with a recommendation to a good family boarding house in London. where she will be charged a very modest fee and advised to become a handmaiden to noble ladies.
Emily has impeccable taste and excellent manners, which, combined with inner dignity, benevolence, the ability to listen, a flair for sales, makes her necessary for a lot of noble rich women who are not averse to having a dozen pairs of stockings from the sale, but they themselves will not go for them; they like to organize charity events, but prefer to delegate the technical part to whom- the other one. And Miss Fox-Sitton is such a cheerful little sun. next to her, everyone is a little lighter and warmer.
I said "small", but this is in the sense of the sun. she is quite tall. Statuesque slender, quite tall and far from slender. Not a beauty, but charming and knows how to be content with little, sincerely rejoicing in that. what has. Therefore, the invitation of a lady from among her clients to live for a week at her country estate, acting as a personal secretary, is perceived with delight. At this time, the heroes of the secular chronicle, amazing beauties and one whole marquis will be staying there - the subject of the matrimonial plans of all unmarried high-society ladies.
Oh, girls, you'll be surprised (or you won't be surprised, we've read about Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy: "He's a gentleman, I'm a gentleman's daughter, I don't understand how marrying me can harm his dignity"). BUT! This will only be the beginning of becoming a marquise, it is much more important to establish yourself in this status and in the heart of a loved one. And it is even more important to preserve yourself and the future heir. The inheritance system there is a entail, like Miss Austen's, and a young rake, by the almighty will of Zeus ... (further in the text) is painfully bad and dangerous.
"Pride and Prejudice" will smoothly flow into a Gothic thriller, like "Moonstone" and "The Woman in White". And oh, it's going to be cool! I was cold with horror and shed tears as I read. Looking for a cool reading - take this book. You won't regret it.
Английская роза
Великосветские дамы знали ее как хорошо воспитанную молодую женщину, которая за скромное вознаграждение могла выполнить бесчисленное множество разнообразных поручений. Она же знала о них гораздо больше и со свойственным ей искренним восхищением теми, кто проявлял к ней доброту, иногда рассказывала об их красоте и благородстве.
Охх, как, ну как я могла совершенно ничего не знать о Фрэнсис Элизабет Бёрнетт? Вернее не так, на окраине моего книжного пространства существовали "Маленькая принцесса" и "Маленьки лорд Фаунтлерой", и про "Таинственный сад" что-то краем уха слышала. Нет, фильм не смотрела. Ни одной из восьми (!) экранизаций.
Потому, на "Как стать леди" особых надежд не возлагала. Если честно, хотела отвлечься, развлечься чем-то, вроде истории Элизы Дулиттл или уайльдова "Как важно быть серьезным". И готова была даже поскучать с этой неизвестной Бёрнетт. Всегда бы так разочаровываться. Роман оказался очаровательным, трогательным. страшным и по-настоящему интересным все время чтения. А героиня замечательно здравомыслящей, умной и достойной молодой женщиной.
Согласитесь, встретить подобное во времена, когда каждый первый персонаж психотравмирован, одержим тайным пороком, ненавидит свою семью, употребляет вещества, страдает шизофренией, паранойей, манией величия - по отдельности или всем вместе, а у каждого второго левая рука не знает, что делает правая по причине синдрома множественных личностей - встретить абсолютно нормальную женщину уже хорошо. А когда она при этом еще глубоко порядочна и склонна видеть в людях лучшее, но ничуть не скучна, не ханжа и не лицемерка - то читать про нее просто именины сердца.
Эмили Фокс-Ситтон отпрыск побочной ветви знатного рода, по происхождению принадлежа к лучшим английским фамилиям, бедна. Она сирота и от участи прислуги, гувернантки (или чего похуже) спасло ее только то, что первым местом работы стал уход за придирчивой престарелой дамой. Впрочем, исполнительность, расторопность, доброжелательность мисс Фокс-Ситтон растопили это каменное сердце и по завещанию леди отписала ей несколько сотен фунтов вместе с рекомендацией в хороший семейный пансион в Лондоне. где с нее будут брать очень скромную плату и советом стать порученкой при знатных дамах.
У Эмили безупречный вкус и отменные манеры, что, в соединении с внутренним достоинством, доброжелательностью, умением слушать, чутьем на распродажи делает ее необходимой множеству знатных богачек, которые не прочь иметь дюжину пар чулок с распродажи, но сами нипочем не отправятся за ними; любят устраивать благотворительные мероприятия, но техническую часть предпочитают делегировать кому-то другому. А еще мисс Фокс-Ситтон такое маленькое неунывающее солнышко. рядом с ней всем чуть светлее и теплее.
Я сказала "маленькое", но это в смысле солнышка. росту она немалого. Статная стройная, довольно высокая и далеко не субтильная. Не красавица, но очаровательна и умеет довольствоваться малым, искренне радуясь тому. что имеет. Потому приглашение одной леди из числа своих клиентов пожить неделю в ее загородном имении, исполняя функции личного секретаря, воспринимает с восторгом. Там будут гостить в это время герои светской хроники, удивительные красавицы и один целый маркиз - предмет матримониальных планов всех незамужних великосветских дам.
Ох, девочки, вы удивитесь (или не удивитесь, мы ведь с вами читали про мисс Беннет и мистера Дарси: "Он джентльмен, я дочь джентльмена, не понимаю, каким образом брак со мной может повредить его достоинству"). НО! Это будет только началом Мало стать маркизой, куда важнее утвердиться в этом статусе и в сердце любимого человека. А еще важнее сохранить себя и будущего наследника. Система наследования там майорат, как у мисс Остен, а молодой повеса, всевышней волею Зевеса... (далее по тексту) уж больно нехорош и опасен.
"Гордость и предубеждение" плавно перетекут в готический триллер, вроде "Лунного камня" и "Женщины в белом". И ох, это будет круто! Я холодела от ужаса и обливалась слезами, читая. Ищете классное чтение - берите эту книгу. Не пожалеете.
Emily has impeccable taste and excellent manners, which, combined with inner dignity, benevolence, the ability to listen, a flair for sales, makes her necessary for a lot of noble rich women who are not averse to having a dozen pairs of stockings from the sale, but they themselves will not go for them; they like to organize charity events, but prefer to delegate the technical part to whom- the other one. And Miss Fox-Sitton is such a cheerful little sun. next to her, everyone is a little lighter and warmer.
I said "small", but this is in the sense of the sun. she is quite tall. Statuesque slender, quite tall and far from slender. Not a beauty, but charming and knows how to be content with little, sincerely rejoicing in that. what has. Therefore, the invitation of a lady from among her clients to live for a week at her country estate, acting as a personal secretary, is perceived with delight. At this time, the heroes of the secular chronicle, amazing beauties and one whole marquis will be staying there - the subject of the matrimonial plans of all unmarried high-society ladies.
Oh, girls, you'll be surprised (or you won't be surprised, we've read about Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy: "He's a gentleman, I'm a gentleman's daughter, I don't understand how marrying me can harm his dignity"). BUT! This will only be the beginning of becoming a marquise, it is much more important to establish yourself in this status and in the heart of a loved one. And it is even more important to preserve yourself and the future heir. The inheritance system there is a entail, like Miss Austen's, and a young rake, by the almighty will of Zeus ... (further in the text) is painfully bad and dangerous.
"Pride and Prejudice" will smoothly flow into a Gothic thriller, like "Moonstone" and "The Woman in White". And oh, it's going to be cool! I was cold with horror and shed tears as I read. Looking for a cool reading - take this book. You won't regret it.
Английская роза
Великосветские дамы знали ее как хорошо воспитанную молодую женщину, которая за скромное вознаграждение могла выполнить бесчисленное множество разнообразных поручений. Она же знала о них гораздо больше и со свойственным ей искренним восхищением теми, кто проявлял к ней доброту, иногда рассказывала об их красоте и благородстве.
Охх, как, ну как я могла совершенно ничего не знать о Фрэнсис Элизабет Бёрнетт? Вернее не так, на окраине моего книжного пространства существовали "Маленькая принцесса" и "Маленьки лорд Фаунтлерой", и про "Таинственный сад" что-то краем уха слышала. Нет, фильм не смотрела. Ни одной из восьми (!) экранизаций.
Потому, на "Как стать леди" особых надежд не возлагала. Если честно, хотела отвлечься, развлечься чем-то, вроде истории Элизы Дулиттл или уайльдова "Как важно быть серьезным". И готова была даже поскучать с этой неизвестной Бёрнетт. Всегда бы так разочаровываться. Роман оказался очаровательным, трогательным. страшным и по-настоящему интересным все время чтения. А героиня замечательно здравомыслящей, умной и достойной молодой женщиной.
Согласитесь, встретить подобное во времена, когда каждый первый персонаж психотравмирован, одержим тайным пороком, ненавидит свою семью, употребляет вещества, страдает шизофренией, паранойей, манией величия - по отдельности или всем вместе, а у каждого второго левая рука не знает, что делает правая по причине синдрома множественных личностей - встретить абсолютно нормальную женщину уже хорошо. А когда она при этом еще глубоко порядочна и склонна видеть в людях лучшее, но ничуть не скучна, не ханжа и не лицемерка - то читать про нее просто именины сердца.
Эмили Фокс-Ситтон отпрыск побочной ветви знатного рода, по происхождению принадлежа к лучшим английским фамилиям, бедна. Она сирота и от участи прислуги, гувернантки (или чего похуже) спасло ее только то, что первым местом работы стал уход за придирчивой престарелой дамой. Впрочем, исполнительность, расторопность, доброжелательность мисс Фокс-Ситтон растопили это каменное сердце и по завещанию леди отписала ей несколько сотен фунтов вместе с рекомендацией в хороший семейный пансион в Лондоне. где с нее будут брать очень скромную плату и советом стать порученкой при знатных дамах.
У Эмили безупречный вкус и отменные манеры, что, в соединении с внутренним достоинством, доброжелательностью, умением слушать, чутьем на распродажи делает ее необходимой множеству знатных богачек, которые не прочь иметь дюжину пар чулок с распродажи, но сами нипочем не отправятся за ними; любят устраивать благотворительные мероприятия, но техническую часть предпочитают делегировать кому-то другому. А еще мисс Фокс-Ситтон такое маленькое неунывающее солнышко. рядом с ней всем чуть светлее и теплее.
Я сказала "маленькое", но это в смысле солнышка. росту она немалого. Статная стройная, довольно высокая и далеко не субтильная. Не красавица, но очаровательна и умеет довольствоваться малым, искренне радуясь тому. что имеет. Потому приглашение одной леди из числа своих клиентов пожить неделю в ее загородном имении, исполняя функции личного секретаря, воспринимает с восторгом. Там будут гостить в это время герои светской хроники, удивительные красавицы и один целый маркиз - предмет матримониальных планов всех незамужних великосветских дам.
Ох, девочки, вы удивитесь (или не удивитесь, мы ведь с вами читали про мисс Беннет и мистера Дарси: "Он джентльмен, я дочь джентльмена, не понимаю, каким образом брак со мной может повредить его достоинству"). НО! Это будет только началом Мало стать маркизой, куда важнее утвердиться в этом статусе и в сердце любимого человека. А еще важнее сохранить себя и будущего наследника. Система наследования там майорат, как у мисс Остен, а молодой повеса, всевышней волею Зевеса... (далее по тексту) уж больно нехорош и опасен.
"Гордость и предубеждение" плавно перетекут в готический триллер, вроде "Лунного камня" и "Женщины в белом". И ох, это будет круто! Я холодела от ужаса и обливалась слезами, читая. Ищете классное чтение - берите эту книгу. Не пожалеете.
November 23, 2015
Francis Hodgson Burnett is best known for her children's books, including The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Like those stories, The Making of a Marchioness explores the world of the British upper classes.
On one level this is a fairy story--set in Edwardian England, just about at the turn of the century. Cinderella reappears in the form of Emily Fox-Seton, a young woman of gentle birth and training, but nearly destitute. Emily, a spinster at thirty-five, cobbles together a slender living by running errands and doing chores for wealthy, idle patrons. She is blessed with a simple, happy disposition, the ability to get things done through hard work and a kind of practical intelligence, and unfailing generosity and good cheer (she really is quite impossibly saintly). A patron who grew fond of her well-born slave left her a small legacy that yields about 20 pounds per year--enough to keep Emily in modest rooms in a bed-sitter in a dreary London neighborhood. Still Emily considers herself fortunate and the daughter of her landlady is, like Emily herself, a clever seamstress who helps her tenant look fairly smart on next to nothing.
When one of Emily's patrons, sharp-tongued, clever Lady Maria Bayne, plans her early August party at her estate in the country, she offers Emily a "treat"--the chance to spend the month at Mallowe arranging all the parties, planning the teas and gatherings and dinners, and running errands to town when the servants are too busy. Lady Maria has some matchmaking planned for her widowed, middle-aged cousin, the Marquis of Walderhurst. On offer are several young girls including an American on the make and Lady Agatha, a debutante with five younger sisters who faces exile at the family's desolate estate in County Clare if she doesn't find a suitable match by the end of The Season.
What comes across most sharply to modern readers is how deeply cruel that society was and how helpless most women were in the face of societal expectations, class distinctions and financial difficulties. Lady Agatha "knew she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and narrowed dullness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of desirable marriage at all...To be able to maintain herself decently, to be given an occasional treat by her more fortunate friends..." was all she could hope for.
Yet Emily is far from bitter--she revels in the beauty of the countryside, the bird song in the morning, the dew on roses at dawn. We feel that exquisite freshness with her all the more acutely because it must be fleeting. Because, when she lets her guard down, Emily knows in her heart that for such as herself old age may well bring dire poverty, the workhouse, or worse, starvation.
What happens next is what readers of Georgette Heyer might expect and I won't spoil the pleasure by giving away plot details. But unlike most Georgette Heyer romances The Making of a Marchioness does not end with a proposal or even a wedding. Yes, we get both and it's quite as magical as we wish. But this is not a romance in any conventional sense of the word; it is a clear-eyed view of upper class British marriage as a social and business proposition and if mature love, or at least esteem, follows that is far more than most women could wish at the time.
The novella takes a darker more Gothic turn in the second half with the appearance of Alec Osborn, Lord Walderhurst's worthless heir, Alec's Anglo-Indian bride, Hester, and a rather sinister ayah turned ladies maid. The Osborns, too, are prisoners of the rigid class and racial distinctions that were the bane of Edwardian society, and their abusive marriage and failing hopes of inheriting Walderhurst's title are predictably but effectively drawn. I found the plot a bit overwrought and Emily's innocence rather improbable, but I couldn't stop turning the pages and there were a couple of heart-stopping moments before the end.
Content rating PG: some disturbing Gothic plot elements and racial stereotyping.
On one level this is a fairy story--set in Edwardian England, just about at the turn of the century. Cinderella reappears in the form of Emily Fox-Seton, a young woman of gentle birth and training, but nearly destitute. Emily, a spinster at thirty-five, cobbles together a slender living by running errands and doing chores for wealthy, idle patrons. She is blessed with a simple, happy disposition, the ability to get things done through hard work and a kind of practical intelligence, and unfailing generosity and good cheer (she really is quite impossibly saintly). A patron who grew fond of her well-born slave left her a small legacy that yields about 20 pounds per year--enough to keep Emily in modest rooms in a bed-sitter in a dreary London neighborhood. Still Emily considers herself fortunate and the daughter of her landlady is, like Emily herself, a clever seamstress who helps her tenant look fairly smart on next to nothing.
When one of Emily's patrons, sharp-tongued, clever Lady Maria Bayne, plans her early August party at her estate in the country, she offers Emily a "treat"--the chance to spend the month at Mallowe arranging all the parties, planning the teas and gatherings and dinners, and running errands to town when the servants are too busy. Lady Maria has some matchmaking planned for her widowed, middle-aged cousin, the Marquis of Walderhurst. On offer are several young girls including an American on the make and Lady Agatha, a debutante with five younger sisters who faces exile at the family's desolate estate in County Clare if she doesn't find a suitable match by the end of The Season.
What comes across most sharply to modern readers is how deeply cruel that society was and how helpless most women were in the face of societal expectations, class distinctions and financial difficulties. Lady Agatha "knew she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and narrowed dullness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of desirable marriage at all...To be able to maintain herself decently, to be given an occasional treat by her more fortunate friends..." was all she could hope for.
Yet Emily is far from bitter--she revels in the beauty of the countryside, the bird song in the morning, the dew on roses at dawn. We feel that exquisite freshness with her all the more acutely because it must be fleeting. Because, when she lets her guard down, Emily knows in her heart that for such as herself old age may well bring dire poverty, the workhouse, or worse, starvation.
What happens next is what readers of Georgette Heyer might expect and I won't spoil the pleasure by giving away plot details. But unlike most Georgette Heyer romances The Making of a Marchioness does not end with a proposal or even a wedding. Yes, we get both and it's quite as magical as we wish. But this is not a romance in any conventional sense of the word; it is a clear-eyed view of upper class British marriage as a social and business proposition and if mature love, or at least esteem, follows that is far more than most women could wish at the time.
The novella takes a darker more Gothic turn in the second half with the appearance of Alec Osborn, Lord Walderhurst's worthless heir, Alec's Anglo-Indian bride, Hester, and a rather sinister ayah turned ladies maid. The Osborns, too, are prisoners of the rigid class and racial distinctions that were the bane of Edwardian society, and their abusive marriage and failing hopes of inheriting Walderhurst's title are predictably but effectively drawn. I found the plot a bit overwrought and Emily's innocence rather improbable, but I couldn't stop turning the pages and there were a couple of heart-stopping moments before the end.
Content rating PG: some disturbing Gothic plot elements and racial stereotyping.
May 5, 2025
An enjoyable fairy tale of a love story, The Making of a Marchioness has a most engaging and sympathetic heroine in Emily Fox-Setin. She is kind and loyal. well-born, but poor, so has to earn her living. When she makes the acquaintance of a rich socialite and begins working for her, her circumstances undergo a major change for the better.
July 31, 2021
2.5 stars.
I started this book without reading any reviews in my continued reading binge of Persephone titles and forgotten early 20th century literature. So I was in for quite a surprise with this book set out in 2 parts. The first part was straightforward fiction but the second part changed into melodramatic gothic. Throughout both parts the author compulsively writes about two things about Emily, the main character; her goodness and her lack of intelligence. The former was obvious because it was shown in the story and didn't require constant reminders to the reader (whom Burnett must also have thought dull-witted). Burnett even has Emily and her husband agreeing that she wasn't clever. However, I didn't find Emily to be dull or stupid but apparently cleverness was an unpleasant feature for women in the early 20th Century or Burnett may have thought that Emily needed to be dim in order to pull off the plot in the second part of the novel.
In the same vein Burnett reminds the reader constantly of Emily's goodness and self-sacrificing nature. It wasn't so much Emily's goodness which was irritating but Burnett's constant need to tell the reader what she shows though Emily's actions, thoughts and appraisals of other characters.
The second part, the gothic element was very loose, repetitive and predictable, not to mention a bit racist.
This book was written 10 years before The Secret Garden was published. It has the feel of a beginning writer. If written once Burnett was a more accomplished writer the book may have worked a bit better, especially the second half.
I started this book without reading any reviews in my continued reading binge of Persephone titles and forgotten early 20th century literature. So I was in for quite a surprise with this book set out in 2 parts. The first part was straightforward fiction but the second part changed into melodramatic gothic. Throughout both parts the author compulsively writes about two things about Emily, the main character; her goodness and her lack of intelligence. The former was obvious because it was shown in the story and didn't require constant reminders to the reader (whom Burnett must also have thought dull-witted). Burnett even has Emily and her husband agreeing that she wasn't clever. However, I didn't find Emily to be dull or stupid but apparently cleverness was an unpleasant feature for women in the early 20th Century or Burnett may have thought that Emily needed to be dim in order to pull off the plot in the second part of the novel.
In the same vein Burnett reminds the reader constantly of Emily's goodness and self-sacrificing nature. It wasn't so much Emily's goodness which was irritating but Burnett's constant need to tell the reader what she shows though Emily's actions, thoughts and appraisals of other characters.
The second part, the gothic element was very loose, repetitive and predictable, not to mention a bit racist.
This book was written 10 years before The Secret Garden was published. It has the feel of a beginning writer. If written once Burnett was a more accomplished writer the book may have worked a bit better, especially the second half.
October 26, 2017
A very enjoyable short novel, written in late Victorian era. Emily Fox-Seton is such a thoroughly enjoyable young woman, so glad to believe the best of others. In some ways she is a type of Pollyanna character herself, but without being conscious of it or rubbing it in other people's faces. Recommended as a pleasant, light read.
November 15, 2011
A very Victorian/Edwardian style of fiction. Professionally speaking, I can spot the passive heroine, the contrived plot (everybody conveniently falling ill and then recovering at the right moment!), and the clumsy murder attempts, doomed to failure. Surely the heroine cannot be as dumb as she is depicted as being; it is significant that all the characters and the narrator assure the reader at least once every chapter that Emily is not stupid, because she sure acts that way. And is it deliberate, that her husband James is such a dolt? Not an evil dolt, but as wooden-headed as they come, resolutely not the sharpest knife on the tea table. Emily is praised as good, and healthy (i.e., fertile) -- all the virtues that a woman really needs, the author seems to indicate. And it is true that brains were not admired, in Edwardian society!
However, if you are able to shed your modern hat and put on the mindset of the contemporary reader, this is an enjoyable book. It is like stepping into a time machine, with the dial set at 1892. Emily merely embodies the virtues of the period; everybody without exception extolls and admires the Edwardian values of unearned income, inherited status, and blooded aristocracy. Only the most intransigent 21st-century reader would yearn for some good Marxist-Leninist doctrine to rattle the bars of these one-percenters. And here I am, back to the modern day again! The fact is that this novel shows, magnificently, why the wildly-unequal English society of the period was so pernicious, and why some change was necessary.
However, if you are able to shed your modern hat and put on the mindset of the contemporary reader, this is an enjoyable book. It is like stepping into a time machine, with the dial set at 1892. Emily merely embodies the virtues of the period; everybody without exception extolls and admires the Edwardian values of unearned income, inherited status, and blooded aristocracy. Only the most intransigent 21st-century reader would yearn for some good Marxist-Leninist doctrine to rattle the bars of these one-percenters. And here I am, back to the modern day again! The fact is that this novel shows, magnificently, why the wildly-unequal English society of the period was so pernicious, and why some change was necessary.
May 14, 2023
*** Possible mild spoilers ***
This is a combination of two books. The first is the story of kind, gentle Emily Fox-Seton who almost inadvertently wins the heart of the Marquis of Waldenhurst. I enjoyed that part immensely, because really a good Cinderella story will never get old.
The second part, after Emily becomes the Marchioness, is not as delightful. Whereas her sweet and innocent nature has you rooting for her in the first book, in the second it becomes rather annoying. She’s not just TSTL but borderline brain-damaged. “Oh, person who clearly can't stand me and will inherit huge estates and vast riches if I were to drop dead and thereby fail to produce an heir… will you and your wife and her creepy, devoted maid please move into my house while husband is away in India? And will you teach me how to ride a horse?”
I’m curious why FHB wrote Emily this way, as she seems to realize it’s problematic. She has one character note that Emily had
And:
I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself unsparingly brilliant, but I contend the story could have been more interesting if Emily hadn’t been so stupid. Instead everything only comes out OK in the end because of all the people who do her thinking for her.
This is a combination of two books. The first is the story of kind, gentle Emily Fox-Seton who almost inadvertently wins the heart of the Marquis of Waldenhurst. I enjoyed that part immensely, because really a good Cinderella story will never get old.
The second part, after Emily becomes the Marchioness, is not as delightful. Whereas her sweet and innocent nature has you rooting for her in the first book, in the second it becomes rather annoying. She’s not just TSTL but borderline brain-damaged. “Oh, person who clearly can't stand me and will inherit huge estates and vast riches if I were to drop dead and thereby fail to produce an heir… will you and your wife and her creepy, devoted maid please move into my house while husband is away in India? And will you teach me how to ride a horse?”
I’m curious why FHB wrote Emily this way, as she seems to realize it’s problematic. She has one character note that Emily had
...a goodness which might prevent the brain acting in the manner in which a brutal world requires at present that the human brain should act in self-defence. Of a goodness which may possibly have betrayed her into the most pathetic trouble.
And:
An unsparingly brilliant person might feel himself entitled to the right to call her stupid.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself unsparingly brilliant, but I contend the story could have been more interesting if Emily hadn’t been so stupid. Instead everything only comes out OK in the end because of all the people who do her thinking for her.
January 14, 2022
A little princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett was my absolutely favorite book for many years in my childhood, read every version I could find and even the full unabridged book, which for a kid like me was a big thing. I've read a few of her stories since then and see definitely has a preferred style arc for her main characters. They are usually so sickeningly sweet and super well maned people. This was a good story with an interesting plot but not an new favorite by her. Felt a little hard to connect to the story but was still enjoyable
August 5, 2023
I would have never imagined Frances Hodgson Burnett could write a creepy book full of gothic drama. Goodness! Read it if you dare!
February 28, 2014
After catching the movie on late night PBS (titled "The Making of a Lady"), I was curious to read the book, to see if the rather silly mistakes that drive the plot are part of the original story. They are, indeed, although the character of the woman was somewhat changed in the movie. The tall, naive, straightforward Emily in the book is repeatedly described, with favor, as "stupid" and "big", just as Lord Walderhurst her husband is described as, "dull", and "beyond middle-aged" (he's mid-50s).
The version I read was on Project Gutenberg, called, "Emily Fox-Seton: Being the Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst". The story is both 19th Century melodrama, and moral romance, and fascinating vision of the society (and clothes) of the time (published 1901). The clothes! Pages and pages describing the cloth and the cost and what was expected -- most interesting.
I would not necessarily recommend this book as a "change-your-life" story -- in fact, some of the attitudes towards propriety and towards roles of women are happily long behind us. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the clear window into the society of the time; I enjoyed the authentic-feeling romance between two people of that society.
The version I read was on Project Gutenberg, called, "Emily Fox-Seton: Being the Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst". The story is both 19th Century melodrama, and moral romance, and fascinating vision of the society (and clothes) of the time (published 1901). The clothes! Pages and pages describing the cloth and the cost and what was expected -- most interesting.
I would not necessarily recommend this book as a "change-your-life" story -- in fact, some of the attitudes towards propriety and towards roles of women are happily long behind us. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the clear window into the society of the time; I enjoyed the authentic-feeling romance between two people of that society.
May 14, 2023
I recommend not reading this with the expectation of a romance—as other reviewers noted, the tone shifts gradually as the novel progresses, and covers some dark themes. There’s also quite a bit of racism here.
Some other reviewers noted the classism in this book: how a certain order of society is presented as preordained and natural. But I found that, interestingly, the only people in this novel who seem to be pro-active and thinking and puzzling things out were the working class characters. The marquis, Lady Maria and even Emily, the actual protagonist, are mostly passive and often quite explicitly stated to not be very bright.
Some other reviewers noted the classism in this book: how a certain order of society is presented as preordained and natural. But I found that, interestingly, the only people in this novel who seem to be pro-active and thinking and puzzling things out were the working class characters. The marquis, Lady Maria and even Emily, the actual protagonist, are mostly passive and often quite explicitly stated to not be very bright.
December 30, 2020
(warning: review contains spoilers)
So this was a funny little book, despite the occasional silliness.
Frances Hodgson Burnett tells the story of Emily Fox-Seton a gentlewoman in her thirties, who is the poor relation of an aristocratic family. Her wealthy relatives do not really care for her, so Emily has to make do by living the life of a respectable working woman in the beginning of the 20th century London. She works as a kind of secretary/errand girl for rich, noble ladies. There's even the mention of a duchess at some point. The whole plot brings to mind an Austen novel. Perhaps that's why it seems a bit dislocated from its time.
One of these noble ladies is Lady Maria Byrne who reminded me of Violet Crawley from Downton Abbey. The witty old lady who has a great knowledge of the world and can say whatever she wants because she's rich and old and part of the aristocracy so no one really cares. Lady Maria is lovable as a character precisely because she is funny (although the author clearly made an herculean effort for her to be so) but we are also told quite clearly that she is a thoroughly selfish woman. While she obviously cares for Emily Fox-Seton, she has no qualms in exploiting her and her talents to the point where poor Emily is exhausted.
Emily is the sweetest, kindest, most generous person. It's a wonder I didn't hate her. Her kindness and goodness are too exalted to be realistic. She is so gullible and uninteresting and she repeats clichés after clichés and yet, somehow, she managed to move me. What is noteworthy about her is that the author is obviously aware that she is writing a ridiculous, pathetic character. Only instead of hiding it, she owns up to it by openly stating her character's failings. Emily isn't stupid. But we are given several opportunities to see how her naivety and lack of cleverness make her unable to deal with certain situations. It's as though Burnett is aware that if she wants Emily to possess a kindness that is almost impossible for a human to have then she has to have some flaws.
Anyway, Emily goes off to the countryside to help aforementioned Lady Maria with her party guests and the village festivities. There she meets Lady Maria's cousin, Lord Walderhurst, a 50 year old Marquess, a widower who is being pressured to marry and have an heir. Walderhurst is actually the most interesting character in all the book because he is the farthest thing from a Romantic or a Regency hero - which one expects him to be given the setting and the way he's introduced. He is kind and considerate but also tremendously dull, inarticulate and too set in his proper, Victorian ways to actually notice any change in himself or in the people around him. He abhors sentimentality and takes a practical view of every subject under the sun. Burnett does not take him too seriously. She is aware that although he is a good man, he is also something of an absurdity. Near the ending of the story, as he is meeting his wife after his return from India, he feels "a slight movement in the cardiac region". In many ways, Walderhust is a parody of the Victorian gentleman. At the same time, however, it would be insensitive to dismiss him as a simple caricature because his feelings are genuine and his confusion at finding himself in love with his wife is somewhat moving.
Walderhust is also a noble man - in the true sense of the word. This is another reason he can't simply be written off as a parody. He decides to propose when he learns that Emily will be left homeless since her impossibly good tenants are moving to the North of England. Walderhust is also the first person to understand that people often take advantage of Emily's kindness. He is angry with Lady Maria - his cousin - when he realises how she thoughtlessly uses Emily as a simple commodity with little consideration for her well-being. He also sees that Emily's kindness and naivety are not the norm in polite society and he appreciates her all he more for it.
They marry. Emily moves to his Manor in the countryside and all seems well until Lord Walderhust is called away to India on some business or other. Emily is left living with her faithful lady's maid (Jane, the daughter of Emily's previous tenant, Mrs Cupp), a bunch of servants and her husband's cousin and his Anglo-Indian wife. Alec Osborn is the villain of the book. And thank God for him, because this book was in dire need of a villain. I mean, everyone is so good that you start wondering if this is an alternative Victorian universe with no horrible people.
Osborn, his wife and her terrifying Indian maid (upon whom all the racism of the book is concentrated) start to resent Emily because now that Walderhust has married her there's no chance for the Osborns to inherit the title.
Emily, naturally, is completely oblivious to this hatred. She is, naturally, extremely kind to them, especially to Osborn's wife, Hester, whom she proceeds to take under her wing. The whole plot takes a sinister - and unexpected - turn when you realise that Alec Osborn and the Indian maid are trying to kill Emily and her unborn child (oh, yes, she's pregnant). The Gothic murder plot is odd and even slightly amusing in its unpredictability. Imagine you're reading Pride and Prejudice when you suddenly realise that Mr Darcy's aunt is trying to kill Elizabeth.
It is true that the absurdity of this plot has limits which sober it up a little. Alec Osborn never explicitly discusses the plan. Hester struggles with her conscience and with the growing realisation of what her husband and her maid are planning. Furthermore, the plot is there to show that Emily really is a very naive person who knows nothing of the evilness of men. So despite it all, this story-line does create an interesting tension.
The book fails tremendously at the end. Emily gives birth to a healthy boy but she gets very ill and almost dies. Lord Walderhust finally arrives from India, and his presence saves her. There's an obvious cliché here and one can't help but roll one's eyes a little. Emily's love and adoration for her husband was always evident. She thinks that she was terribly lucky to marry him (which she was) and proceeds to idealize him to an extreme. To give the author credit, this is true to Emily's character. She was always inclined to idealize people's kindness towards her. Her near-death experience is also used for Lord Walderhust to understand the extent of his feelings for her. Still, the dying plot-device is just too much and just feels silly and melodramatic. It goes so far as declaring that Emily had expressively ordered the doctor to save the child instead of her if the situation demanded since she believed that her husband desperately wanted an heir. When Lord Walderhust arrives we see that this is not the case at all, and that he wouldn't give up her for life for anything. It is a nice sentiment but a bit soap-operish in the way it's written.
So why did I enjoy this book?
Despite its silliness and clichés, I feel that the author does not take her characters too seriously. There's a healthy, amusing distance she places between her thoughts and those of her characters. This makes the narrative very funny.
I also enjoy the little elements of realism. For instance, Emily's preoccupation with money and making a respectable living is remarkable. We see her discussing prices of things, worrying about where she'll end up as an old woman when her strength to work starts to fail. Here the subject of money, livelihood, the every day problems of a woman in Emily's initial position are written quite explicitly.
What is most annoying about this book is that we are supposed to believe that such a story would have gone exactly the way it did. Emily is very kind and the world seems to be very kind to her. Yet is it really believable that Lady Maria would be so fine with a minor, impoverished second rate noblewoman (whom she basically employs) marrying her cousin, a rich Marquis? Would polite society as a whole have received Emily the way it did, so nicely and with such good will? Would Emily have adapted so well to her new circumstances? Wouldn't she become something of an outcast? Where is the classism of British Victorian society? I feel that the novel would have been much, much better if it had been forced to confront these issues instead of forcing upon us the murder plot and the heroine's near death.
Furthermore, it is undeniable that the novel repeats itself constantly. We are often told that Emily is kind but not very intelligent, that Lord Walderhust is a good man but not an intellectual, that Lady Maria is witty and slightly amoral. The characters change little throughout the story with the exception of Walderhust who discovers, to his astonishment, that he does love his wife.
So this was a funny little book, despite the occasional silliness.
Frances Hodgson Burnett tells the story of Emily Fox-Seton a gentlewoman in her thirties, who is the poor relation of an aristocratic family. Her wealthy relatives do not really care for her, so Emily has to make do by living the life of a respectable working woman in the beginning of the 20th century London. She works as a kind of secretary/errand girl for rich, noble ladies. There's even the mention of a duchess at some point. The whole plot brings to mind an Austen novel. Perhaps that's why it seems a bit dislocated from its time.
One of these noble ladies is Lady Maria Byrne who reminded me of Violet Crawley from Downton Abbey. The witty old lady who has a great knowledge of the world and can say whatever she wants because she's rich and old and part of the aristocracy so no one really cares. Lady Maria is lovable as a character precisely because she is funny (although the author clearly made an herculean effort for her to be so) but we are also told quite clearly that she is a thoroughly selfish woman. While she obviously cares for Emily Fox-Seton, she has no qualms in exploiting her and her talents to the point where poor Emily is exhausted.
Emily is the sweetest, kindest, most generous person. It's a wonder I didn't hate her. Her kindness and goodness are too exalted to be realistic. She is so gullible and uninteresting and she repeats clichés after clichés and yet, somehow, she managed to move me. What is noteworthy about her is that the author is obviously aware that she is writing a ridiculous, pathetic character. Only instead of hiding it, she owns up to it by openly stating her character's failings. Emily isn't stupid. But we are given several opportunities to see how her naivety and lack of cleverness make her unable to deal with certain situations. It's as though Burnett is aware that if she wants Emily to possess a kindness that is almost impossible for a human to have then she has to have some flaws.
Anyway, Emily goes off to the countryside to help aforementioned Lady Maria with her party guests and the village festivities. There she meets Lady Maria's cousin, Lord Walderhurst, a 50 year old Marquess, a widower who is being pressured to marry and have an heir. Walderhurst is actually the most interesting character in all the book because he is the farthest thing from a Romantic or a Regency hero - which one expects him to be given the setting and the way he's introduced. He is kind and considerate but also tremendously dull, inarticulate and too set in his proper, Victorian ways to actually notice any change in himself or in the people around him. He abhors sentimentality and takes a practical view of every subject under the sun. Burnett does not take him too seriously. She is aware that although he is a good man, he is also something of an absurdity. Near the ending of the story, as he is meeting his wife after his return from India, he feels "a slight movement in the cardiac region". In many ways, Walderhust is a parody of the Victorian gentleman. At the same time, however, it would be insensitive to dismiss him as a simple caricature because his feelings are genuine and his confusion at finding himself in love with his wife is somewhat moving.
Walderhust is also a noble man - in the true sense of the word. This is another reason he can't simply be written off as a parody. He decides to propose when he learns that Emily will be left homeless since her impossibly good tenants are moving to the North of England. Walderhust is also the first person to understand that people often take advantage of Emily's kindness. He is angry with Lady Maria - his cousin - when he realises how she thoughtlessly uses Emily as a simple commodity with little consideration for her well-being. He also sees that Emily's kindness and naivety are not the norm in polite society and he appreciates her all he more for it.
They marry. Emily moves to his Manor in the countryside and all seems well until Lord Walderhust is called away to India on some business or other. Emily is left living with her faithful lady's maid (Jane, the daughter of Emily's previous tenant, Mrs Cupp), a bunch of servants and her husband's cousin and his Anglo-Indian wife. Alec Osborn is the villain of the book. And thank God for him, because this book was in dire need of a villain. I mean, everyone is so good that you start wondering if this is an alternative Victorian universe with no horrible people.
Osborn, his wife and her terrifying Indian maid (upon whom all the racism of the book is concentrated) start to resent Emily because now that Walderhust has married her there's no chance for the Osborns to inherit the title.
Emily, naturally, is completely oblivious to this hatred. She is, naturally, extremely kind to them, especially to Osborn's wife, Hester, whom she proceeds to take under her wing. The whole plot takes a sinister - and unexpected - turn when you realise that Alec Osborn and the Indian maid are trying to kill Emily and her unborn child (oh, yes, she's pregnant). The Gothic murder plot is odd and even slightly amusing in its unpredictability. Imagine you're reading Pride and Prejudice when you suddenly realise that Mr Darcy's aunt is trying to kill Elizabeth.
It is true that the absurdity of this plot has limits which sober it up a little. Alec Osborn never explicitly discusses the plan. Hester struggles with her conscience and with the growing realisation of what her husband and her maid are planning. Furthermore, the plot is there to show that Emily really is a very naive person who knows nothing of the evilness of men. So despite it all, this story-line does create an interesting tension.
The book fails tremendously at the end. Emily gives birth to a healthy boy but she gets very ill and almost dies. Lord Walderhust finally arrives from India, and his presence saves her. There's an obvious cliché here and one can't help but roll one's eyes a little. Emily's love and adoration for her husband was always evident. She thinks that she was terribly lucky to marry him (which she was) and proceeds to idealize him to an extreme. To give the author credit, this is true to Emily's character. She was always inclined to idealize people's kindness towards her. Her near-death experience is also used for Lord Walderhust to understand the extent of his feelings for her. Still, the dying plot-device is just too much and just feels silly and melodramatic. It goes so far as declaring that Emily had expressively ordered the doctor to save the child instead of her if the situation demanded since she believed that her husband desperately wanted an heir. When Lord Walderhust arrives we see that this is not the case at all, and that he wouldn't give up her for life for anything. It is a nice sentiment but a bit soap-operish in the way it's written.
So why did I enjoy this book?
Despite its silliness and clichés, I feel that the author does not take her characters too seriously. There's a healthy, amusing distance she places between her thoughts and those of her characters. This makes the narrative very funny.
I also enjoy the little elements of realism. For instance, Emily's preoccupation with money and making a respectable living is remarkable. We see her discussing prices of things, worrying about where she'll end up as an old woman when her strength to work starts to fail. Here the subject of money, livelihood, the every day problems of a woman in Emily's initial position are written quite explicitly.
What is most annoying about this book is that we are supposed to believe that such a story would have gone exactly the way it did. Emily is very kind and the world seems to be very kind to her. Yet is it really believable that Lady Maria would be so fine with a minor, impoverished second rate noblewoman (whom she basically employs) marrying her cousin, a rich Marquis? Would polite society as a whole have received Emily the way it did, so nicely and with such good will? Would Emily have adapted so well to her new circumstances? Wouldn't she become something of an outcast? Where is the classism of British Victorian society? I feel that the novel would have been much, much better if it had been forced to confront these issues instead of forcing upon us the murder plot and the heroine's near death.
Furthermore, it is undeniable that the novel repeats itself constantly. We are often told that Emily is kind but not very intelligent, that Lord Walderhust is a good man but not an intellectual, that Lady Maria is witty and slightly amoral. The characters change little throughout the story with the exception of Walderhust who discovers, to his astonishment, that he does love his wife.
September 18, 2017
Completely enjoyable. Emily is kind, unsuspecting, unselfish woman that on principle one should hate but I couldn't. I just liked her even when she saw the best in people (and they were trying to kill her). She's just so nice and real. This is two stories in one - the first half is a romance and the second half is a horror show (husband's heir is not fond of the new Marchioness). It shouldn't work, those two jarring stories, but it does. I really liked this edition, it had a intro and afterward that added to the book. I'd recommended this to someone looking for a book written in the early 1900's. This one was written 1901 which is about ten years before the Secret Garden was written.
December 22, 2020
Maybe deserving of 3 stars but I'm erring on the side of 'I spent half this book wondering if I should bother finishing' and am going to rate it 2 stars.
The book suffers from a terribly naïve, Mary Sue main character who is redeemed initially by the acerbic wit of the narrator and then by sheer drama of her husband's heir trying to murder her. Which sounds exciting and only is so-far as vaguely racist views of India natives exercising some form of voodoo make it.
Not my favorite Burnett. If looking for something off the beaten path by her, I'd recommend A Lady of Quality.
The book suffers from a terribly naïve, Mary Sue main character who is redeemed initially by the acerbic wit of the narrator and then by sheer drama of her husband's heir trying to murder her. Which sounds exciting and only is so-far as vaguely racist views of India natives exercising some form of voodoo make it.
Not my favorite Burnett. If looking for something off the beaten path by her, I'd recommend A Lady of Quality.
August 20, 2021
Bastant a favor d'aquestes novel·les de senyores que queden per prendre el te i parlen de vestits i de sobte, acaben fent més girs que una baldufa
Read
March 6, 2024FHB wrote this as two separate novels, and separate they should have remained. So, what we have first is a delightful little novella about a Fanny Price-style character who is invited to a house party so that her posh elderly connection can slack off while she does all the work, but events take a Cinderella-like turn. This was just charming, with wonderful turns of phrase from the author, insightful observations, and a plethora of detail about everyday life on different class levels in 1901, including descriptions of food. (Gold for the historical novelists among us!)
But then—and who knows WHAT she was thinking—FHB decides to revisit her character in a disastrously thin sequel with a genre switch into gothic. FHB did a much better job with gothic tropes in THE SECRET FARDEN.
The most striking part of the sequel is unfortunately the casually racist attitude towards India. On a recent reread of THE SECRET GARDEN, I sensed a bit of this and had some questions, but it is so very slight that it is easily overlooked, and the novel itself is worth it. In this novel, Indian people and ways are used to create a sense of unease and threat, which seems awfully unfair given the historical relationship between England and India. Really, these two works should be split up and assessed separately.
But then—and who knows WHAT she was thinking—FHB decides to revisit her character in a disastrously thin sequel with a genre switch into gothic. FHB did a much better job with gothic tropes in THE SECRET FARDEN.
The most striking part of the sequel is unfortunately the casually racist attitude towards India. On a recent reread of THE SECRET GARDEN, I sensed a bit of this and had some questions, but it is so very slight that it is easily overlooked, and the novel itself is worth it. In this novel, Indian people and ways are used to create a sense of unease and threat, which seems awfully unfair given the historical relationship between England and India. Really, these two works should be split up and assessed separately.
March 11, 2025
Dopo le nozze
Emily Fox-Seton ha 34 anni, un aspetto gradevole e una buona intelligenza, sebbene non sia molto brillante. È di buona famiglia, ma priva di mezzi e di un marito e di conseguenza si mantiene svolgendo lavoretti vari e piccole commissioni per le sue altolocate conoscenze. A fine giornata si ritira in una modesta, ma rispettabile pensione, dove è diventata molto amica della buona proprietaria, la signora Cupp, e della figlia di lei, Jane.
Un giorno una delle sue datrici di lavoro, Lady Maria, la invita a trascorrere l'estate con lei nella sua magione di campagna. Lady Maria è una donna gentile, ironica e intelligente, sinceramente affezionata a Emily e al tempo stesso ben decisa a scaricarle sulle spalle tutti i compiti più ingrati e faticosi che comporta l'ospitare in casa un folto gruppo di amici. Non lo fa con crudeltà o senso di superiorità, ma la legge sociale è questa: chi non possiede nulla deve chinare il capo davanti a chi possiede tutto. Emily, però, è un trionfo di buoni sentimenti, generosità, attenzioni per il prossimo. Non conosce l'invidia, il risentimento, l'aspettativa. È talmente candida che se non fosse la protagonista di un romanzo verrebbe proprio da pensare che è la protagonista di un romanzo. Accetta l'invito con entusiasmo e riconoscenza ed è così che incontra il marchese di Walderhurst, un vedovo di mezza età, senza figli e dall'umore cupo.
Stanco delle fanciulle che lo assediano nella speranza di diventare la prossima marchesa, Walderhurst posa gli occhi su Emily e, conquistato dalla sua umiltà, dalla gentilezza e dalla disponibilità a soddisfare le richieste di tutti, sceglie proprio lei. Una donna non più nel fiore degli anni, affascinante, ma non bellissima, senza denaro e per giunta una lavoratrice. Stupore e meraviglia: chi lo avrebbe mai detto?
Emily entra così da marchesa nella dimora di campagna di Walderhurst, ma le sue avventure non sono ancora finite. Inciampa infatti nell'erede presunto del marito, del titolo e di tutti i suoi beni, nel caso in cui morisse senza figli: suo nipote, lo sgradevole capitano Alec Osborne, e la moglie di lui, una ragazza mezza indiana. I due sono, naturalmente, tutt'altro che felici di trovarsi davanti un ostacolo imprevisto. E se iniziassero ad architettare un piano per liberarsi di Emily, possibilmente prima che dia un erede al marito?
Questo romanzo è stata una deliziosissima compagnia, me lo sono letteralmente divorato dalla prima all'ultima pagina. Già conoscevo Frances Hodgson-Burnett, di cui ho letto e apprezzato Il giardino segreto e La piccola principessa. Mi aspettavo una buona scrittura, un buon intrattenimento e una storia d'amore condita da un po' di suspense. La storia tra Emily e il marchese, invece, non è per nulla romantica. È al contrario piuttosto realistica, osservata con occhi scaltri e descritta con abbondanza di gustosa ironia british che rende queste pagine un vero spasso. La coloritura dark della vicenda, rappresentata dai terribili intrighi del capitano Osborne e di sua moglie, stempera ulteriormente il romance. Di solito i romanzi vittoriani che seguono le peripezie di una coppia si concludono con il matrimonio, mentre Hodgson-Burnett ci mostra cosa accade dopo le nozze, quali altre insidie possono celarsi dietro una perfetta vita matrimoniale.
Non è certo un capolavoro, ma una storia semplice e piuttosto prevedibile dalla quale, per qualche misteriosa ragione, non ci si riesce a staccare, scritta da una penna fluida e appassionante, popolata da una galleria di personaggi indimenticabili, come la tormentata signora Osborne, la caustica Lady Maria, l'impassibile Walderhurst e la fedelissima Jane Cupp. Una lettura perfetta per gli amanti di Jane Austen e anche di Downton Abbey, dal momento che non manca una dinamica upstairs-downstairs, sebbene non molto sviluppata.
Emily Fox-Seton ha 34 anni, un aspetto gradevole e una buona intelligenza, sebbene non sia molto brillante. È di buona famiglia, ma priva di mezzi e di un marito e di conseguenza si mantiene svolgendo lavoretti vari e piccole commissioni per le sue altolocate conoscenze. A fine giornata si ritira in una modesta, ma rispettabile pensione, dove è diventata molto amica della buona proprietaria, la signora Cupp, e della figlia di lei, Jane.
Un giorno una delle sue datrici di lavoro, Lady Maria, la invita a trascorrere l'estate con lei nella sua magione di campagna. Lady Maria è una donna gentile, ironica e intelligente, sinceramente affezionata a Emily e al tempo stesso ben decisa a scaricarle sulle spalle tutti i compiti più ingrati e faticosi che comporta l'ospitare in casa un folto gruppo di amici. Non lo fa con crudeltà o senso di superiorità, ma la legge sociale è questa: chi non possiede nulla deve chinare il capo davanti a chi possiede tutto. Emily, però, è un trionfo di buoni sentimenti, generosità, attenzioni per il prossimo. Non conosce l'invidia, il risentimento, l'aspettativa. È talmente candida che se non fosse la protagonista di un romanzo verrebbe proprio da pensare che è la protagonista di un romanzo. Accetta l'invito con entusiasmo e riconoscenza ed è così che incontra il marchese di Walderhurst, un vedovo di mezza età, senza figli e dall'umore cupo.
Stanco delle fanciulle che lo assediano nella speranza di diventare la prossima marchesa, Walderhurst posa gli occhi su Emily e, conquistato dalla sua umiltà, dalla gentilezza e dalla disponibilità a soddisfare le richieste di tutti, sceglie proprio lei. Una donna non più nel fiore degli anni, affascinante, ma non bellissima, senza denaro e per giunta una lavoratrice. Stupore e meraviglia: chi lo avrebbe mai detto?
Emily entra così da marchesa nella dimora di campagna di Walderhurst, ma le sue avventure non sono ancora finite. Inciampa infatti nell'erede presunto del marito, del titolo e di tutti i suoi beni, nel caso in cui morisse senza figli: suo nipote, lo sgradevole capitano Alec Osborne, e la moglie di lui, una ragazza mezza indiana. I due sono, naturalmente, tutt'altro che felici di trovarsi davanti un ostacolo imprevisto. E se iniziassero ad architettare un piano per liberarsi di Emily, possibilmente prima che dia un erede al marito?
Questo romanzo è stata una deliziosissima compagnia, me lo sono letteralmente divorato dalla prima all'ultima pagina. Già conoscevo Frances Hodgson-Burnett, di cui ho letto e apprezzato Il giardino segreto e La piccola principessa. Mi aspettavo una buona scrittura, un buon intrattenimento e una storia d'amore condita da un po' di suspense. La storia tra Emily e il marchese, invece, non è per nulla romantica. È al contrario piuttosto realistica, osservata con occhi scaltri e descritta con abbondanza di gustosa ironia british che rende queste pagine un vero spasso. La coloritura dark della vicenda, rappresentata dai terribili intrighi del capitano Osborne e di sua moglie, stempera ulteriormente il romance. Di solito i romanzi vittoriani che seguono le peripezie di una coppia si concludono con il matrimonio, mentre Hodgson-Burnett ci mostra cosa accade dopo le nozze, quali altre insidie possono celarsi dietro una perfetta vita matrimoniale.
Non è certo un capolavoro, ma una storia semplice e piuttosto prevedibile dalla quale, per qualche misteriosa ragione, non ci si riesce a staccare, scritta da una penna fluida e appassionante, popolata da una galleria di personaggi indimenticabili, come la tormentata signora Osborne, la caustica Lady Maria, l'impassibile Walderhurst e la fedelissima Jane Cupp. Una lettura perfetta per gli amanti di Jane Austen e anche di Downton Abbey, dal momento che non manca una dinamica upstairs-downstairs, sebbene non molto sviluppata.
December 24, 2017
I found a beautiful Persephone edition of ‘The Making of a Marchioness’ in a charity shop, after reading and enjoying The Shuttle. Frances Hodgson Burnett is a distinctive writer with an impressively cynical view of late Victorian marriage and limitations placed upon women. I preferred The Shuttle, though, as it had a more striking narrator and clearer structure. ‘The Making of a Marchioness’ was written in two parts, the first of which is much shorter and in my view much more effective. Both concern Emily Fox-Seton, initially a badly paid dogsbody who struggles to pay her rent. The first part ends with her life changing very significantly, then the second part plays this out at much greater length.
The highlight for me was the solidarity between women throughout. I particularly liked the dynamic between Emily and Lady Agatha, who are both very familiar with financial difficulty:
‘The Making of a Marchioness’ touches on some surprisingly radical topics for the time: pregnancy outside marriage, abortion, and domestic violence. However, the main character is so entirely virtuous as to beggar belief at times. I didn’t dislike her, in fact she seemed admirable, I just found her hard to understand. The depictions of class differences are cleverly done, albeit in an entirely uncritical fashion. ‘The Making of a Marchioness’ is well worth reading, although the first part is undoubtedly superior.
The highlight for me was the solidarity between women throughout. I particularly liked the dynamic between Emily and Lady Agatha, who are both very familiar with financial difficulty:
[Emily] had not lived in a world where marriage was a thing of romance, and, for that matter, neither had Agatha. It was nice if a girl liked the man who married her, but if he was a well-behaved, agreeable person, of good means, it was natural that she would end by liking him sufficiently, and to be provided for comfortably or luxuriously for life, and not left upon one’s own hands, or one’s parents’, was a thing to be thankful for in any case.
[...]
They both had hard lives, and knew what lay before them. Agatha knew she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and narrowed dullness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of desirable marriage at all. She was too poor, too entirely unsupported by social surroundings, and not sufficiently radiant to catch the roving eye. To be able to maintain herself decently, to be given an occasional treat by her more fortunate friends, and to be allowed by fortune to present to the face of the world the appearance of a woman who was not a pauper, was all that she could expect.
‘The Making of a Marchioness’ touches on some surprisingly radical topics for the time: pregnancy outside marriage, abortion, and domestic violence. However, the main character is so entirely virtuous as to beggar belief at times. I didn’t dislike her, in fact she seemed admirable, I just found her hard to understand. The depictions of class differences are cleverly done, albeit in an entirely uncritical fashion. ‘The Making of a Marchioness’ is well worth reading, although the first part is undoubtedly superior.
June 22, 2011
I loved this book (I actually read "Emily Fox-Seton," which is the two parts of the story in one--the second part was originally published separately as "The Methods of Lady Walderhurst."
The first part is a Cinderella-like story in which well-born but poor Emily is struggling to keep to a certain respectable standard of living in late-19th-century London. In addition to being a rather unconventional love story, we get some insight into the state of marriage at this time and the British class system.
The second part is more melodramatic and Burnett's writing gets a bit thick in a few places, but I still enjoyed it a lot. We learn more about Emily and she is just such an appealing character. One could argue that the drama at the end of the book (I won't give anything away) wasn't strictly necessary, but it is well-written and does serve to develop the character of Lord Walderhurst. All in all, a very enjoyable read from a great story-teller.
The first part is a Cinderella-like story in which well-born but poor Emily is struggling to keep to a certain respectable standard of living in late-19th-century London. In addition to being a rather unconventional love story, we get some insight into the state of marriage at this time and the British class system.
The second part is more melodramatic and Burnett's writing gets a bit thick in a few places, but I still enjoyed it a lot. We learn more about Emily and she is just such an appealing character. One could argue that the drama at the end of the book (I won't give anything away) wasn't strictly necessary, but it is well-written and does serve to develop the character of Lord Walderhurst. All in all, a very enjoyable read from a great story-teller.
December 21, 2020
My first by this author but I so loved the story of Emily an unselfish woman who just wanted to give. She doesn’t see hate the way other do.
The love story part of the book will make you swoon the second part of the book feels a lot like greed to me.
But the ending was sweet.
I do love the accents and the narration was sweet.
The love story part of the book will make you swoon the second part of the book feels a lot like greed to me.
But the ending was sweet.
I do love the accents and the narration was sweet.
October 3, 2021
La formació d’una marquesa va ser publicada originàriament l’any 1901 i li va seguir una seqüela amb el nom de The Methods of Lady Walderhurst. Posteriorment, els dos relats van publicar-se junts sota el nom del primer, The Making of a Marchioness. Ara Viena Edicions per al seu Club Victòria, publica una edició recopilatòria amb el títol La formació d’una marquesa amb la bona traducció de Marta Pera Cucurell. L’autora, Frances Hodgson Burnett, és coneguda principalment pel conte infantil El petit lord i també per la novel·la El jardí secret.
L’Emily Fox-Seton és una dona d’uns trenta anys pobra i sola... https://www.obrirunllibre.cat/la-form...
L’Emily Fox-Seton és una dona d’uns trenta anys pobra i sola... https://www.obrirunllibre.cat/la-form...
April 5, 2010
I haven't read this since I was a teenager and while the idea of a perfectly open and naturally aristocratic nature raising a woman from genteel poverty to titled riches makes the first half fairly readable, the harping on Emily's perfect normality and confiding childlike nature really cloys. The thing one likes about Mary Lennox and Sara Crewe, in her childre's books, is that they are NOT perfect paragons. I would much rather have read a book about the semi-evil Anglo-Indian wife of the heir.
Plus, there is all kinds of creepy racialist talk about physiognomy that gives me the wiggins.
Plus, there is all kinds of creepy racialist talk about physiognomy that gives me the wiggins.
June 1, 2019
Serialized in the British Cornhill Magazine in 1901, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Making of a Marchioness, together with its sequel, The Methods of Lady Walderhurst, were published together as Emily Fox-Seton (the name of the heroine) that same year, and seem to have been linked this way ever since. My edition of the novel, found on the shelves of my public library, is part of The Doughty Library - a Stein and Day series intended to reprint Victorian and Edwardian novels that had undeservedly fallen out of print - and despite the introduction of Marghanita Laski, who claims that the sequel is not included here, it appears to contain both stories. I double-checked the free ebook available from manybooks.net, in order to verify this. I find this confusion rather odd, but just in case anyone else is looking at this edition, yes, it does contain both.
In any case, I enjoyed reading this one quite a bit, although I have to say I liked the earlier story - in which impoverished gentlewoman Emily Fox-Seton, invited by one of her wealthy patron-employers to a house-party, ends up becoming the most unexpected matrimonial object of the Marquis of Walderhurst - far better than the sequel, in which the new Marchioness' life is threatened by the unscrupulous heir to her husband's title and estates. The whole thing is rampantly sentimental, with an unbelievably saintly heroine, melodramatic villains, and a final death-bed realization. It is also, unfortunately, unconsciously racist, despite the author's reference to Uncle Tom's Cabin (meant to indicate the heroine's broad-minded views), in its depiction of Ameerah, the Osborns' Indian servant. That said, The Making of a Marchioness is an excellent period piece, and is best enjoyed as such. It has significant flaws, and will not be for everyone, but those who enjoy this particular kind of Edwardian fiction, with one foot still in the Victorian world, will enjoy it immensely.
In any case, I enjoyed reading this one quite a bit, although I have to say I liked the earlier story - in which impoverished gentlewoman Emily Fox-Seton, invited by one of her wealthy patron-employers to a house-party, ends up becoming the most unexpected matrimonial object of the Marquis of Walderhurst - far better than the sequel, in which the new Marchioness' life is threatened by the unscrupulous heir to her husband's title and estates. The whole thing is rampantly sentimental, with an unbelievably saintly heroine, melodramatic villains, and a final death-bed realization. It is also, unfortunately, unconsciously racist, despite the author's reference to Uncle Tom's Cabin (meant to indicate the heroine's broad-minded views), in its depiction of Ameerah, the Osborns' Indian servant. That said, The Making of a Marchioness is an excellent period piece, and is best enjoyed as such. It has significant flaws, and will not be for everyone, but those who enjoy this particular kind of Edwardian fiction, with one foot still in the Victorian world, will enjoy it immensely.
May 10, 2013
Free download available at Project Gutenberg
The three week read and discussion of Emily Fox-Seton by Frances Hodgson Burnett begins Sunday, May 5, at the 19thCenturyLit group. Emily Fox-Seton includes The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst.
This book discussion can be joined at 19thCenturyLit - Literature of the 19th Century.
Discussion Schedule:
May 5 Part One (Chapters 1 - 6)
May 12 Part Two, Chapters 7 - 15
May 19 Part Two, Chapters 16 - 24
Both books, "The Making of a Marchioness" and "The Methods of Lady Walderhurst" are typical Edwardian's pieces of work where the heroine, a good, honest and hard-working woman, has a fairytale ending which is typical in the Burnett's books.
As very well pointed out by one of the members in the 19th Century Literature Yahoo Group, "the contrast between light and dark, comfort and poverty, was the dominant theme of her books."
I can feel some autobiographical hints during the narrative even if I didn't know so much about her life before reading these couple of books.
At Wikipedia, one can find a good biography of this author, namely Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of "The Secret Garden" by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
Another interesting book about this author which should be mentioned here is Waiting for the Party: The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett by Ann Thwaite
The three week read and discussion of Emily Fox-Seton by Frances Hodgson Burnett begins Sunday, May 5, at the 19thCenturyLit group. Emily Fox-Seton includes The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst.
This book discussion can be joined at 19thCenturyLit - Literature of the 19th Century.
Discussion Schedule:
May 5 Part One (Chapters 1 - 6)
May 12 Part Two, Chapters 7 - 15
May 19 Part Two, Chapters 16 - 24
Both books, "The Making of a Marchioness" and "The Methods of Lady Walderhurst" are typical Edwardian's pieces of work where the heroine, a good, honest and hard-working woman, has a fairytale ending which is typical in the Burnett's books.
As very well pointed out by one of the members in the 19th Century Literature Yahoo Group, "the contrast between light and dark, comfort and poverty, was the dominant theme of her books."
I can feel some autobiographical hints during the narrative even if I didn't know so much about her life before reading these couple of books.
At Wikipedia, one can find a good biography of this author, namely Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of "The Secret Garden" by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
Another interesting book about this author which should be mentioned here is Waiting for the Party: The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett by Ann Thwaite
March 26, 2023
Frances Hodgson Burnett was a moralist. She was prizing one kind of life. But she also had a fairytale-ish kind of writing. So, depending on how one reads her stories, one sees sweet stories or old-fashioned, full of prejudiced stories. Enough of the preface.
I really enjoyed the first part ("The Making of a Marchioness"). It was charming, a bit funny. Rather hard to believe - that such people like Emily existed, but in a book it was heartwarming. [3.5-4 stars]
Unfortunately, the second part ("The Methods of Lady Walderhurst") was much less enjoyable. I forgive much prejudice in historical fiction because there were many in the past, and I prefer a realistic novel to one that lies. But, the moralistic soul of the author went too obvious in this book. I understood where she saw the evil, yet she kept saying it, again and again, to make sure the reader get it. The part about Emily's sacrifice made me roll my eyes too. And the last climax - too dramatic for my taste, even in such a story. [2 stars]
I liked the character of Emily and Walderhurst (mostly as they looked in the first part). They could have created a much better story. As it was, it was a little bizarre reading. [The second part I mostly listened to.]
I really enjoyed the first part ("The Making of a Marchioness"). It was charming, a bit funny. Rather hard to believe - that such people like Emily existed, but in a book it was heartwarming. [3.5-4 stars]
Unfortunately, the second part ("The Methods of Lady Walderhurst") was much less enjoyable. I forgive much prejudice in historical fiction because there were many in the past, and I prefer a realistic novel to one that lies. But, the moralistic soul of the author went too obvious in this book. I understood where she saw the evil, yet she kept saying it, again and again, to make sure the reader get it. The part about Emily's sacrifice made me roll my eyes too. And the last climax - too dramatic for my taste, even in such a story. [2 stars]
I liked the character of Emily and Walderhurst (mostly as they looked in the first part). They could have created a much better story. As it was, it was a little bizarre reading. [The second part I mostly listened to.]
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