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Jenny Wren #1
Jenny Wren
On their father's death, Jenny and Dahlia Rendall, with their mother Louisa, move across the river to the heights of Upper Radstowe. Here they try to make a living by taking in lodgers. But their neighbours eye this all-female household with alarm and distrust -- especially when a local farmer takes to calling on Louisa, now an attractive, if not entirely respectable widow. Dahlia takes it all with a pinch of salt; fastidious, conventional Jenny cannot. Embarrassed by her mother's country ways, smarting at every slight, both real and imaginary, she longs for a different life. Then Jenny falls in love with a handsome young squire -- but certain of his prejudice and a prisoner of her pride, she dares not reveal her name...
364 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1932
248 people want to read
About the author
E.H. Young
20 books38 followersBorn Emily Hilda Young.
Although almost completely forgotten by recent generations, E. H. Young was a best-selling novelist of her time. She was born the daughter of a shipbroker and attended Gateshead Secondary School (a higher grade school later renamed Gateshead Grammar School) and Penrhos College, Colwyn Bay, Wales. In 1902, at the age of 22, she married Arthur Daniell, a solicitor from Bristol, and moved with him to the upscale neighbourhood of Clifton.
Here, Young developed an interest in classical and modern philosophy. She became a supporter of the suffragette movement, and started publishing novels. She also began a lifelong affair with Ralph Henderson, a schoolteacher and a friend of her husband.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Young went to work, first as a stables groom and then in a munitions factory. Her husband was killed at the Battle of Ypres in 1917. The following year she moved to Sydenham Hill, London to join her lover, now the headmaster of the public school Alleyn's, and his wife in a ménage à trois. Young occupied a separate flat in their house and was addressed as 'Mrs Daniell'; this concealed the unconventional arrangement.
This change seems to have been the catalyst that she needed. Seven major novels followed, all based on Clifton, thinly disguised as 'Upper Radstowe'. The first of these was The Misses Mallett, published originally under the title The Bridge Dividing in 1922. Her 1930 novel Miss Mole won the James Tait Black Award for fiction. In the 1940s, Young also wrote books for children, Caravan Island (1940) and River Holiday (1942).
After Henderson's retirement and the death of his wife, Young moved with him to Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire. They never married. During the Second World War, she worked actively in air raid precautions. She lived in Wiltshire with Henderson until her death from lung cancer in 1949.
Although popular in her time, Young's work has nearly vanished today. In 1980, a four-part series based on her novels – mainly Miss Mole – was shown on BBC television as "Hannah". The feminist publishing house Virago reprinted several of her books in the 1980s, and the Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society has marked her Clifton home with a plaque.
The 'E H Young Prize for Greek Thought' was an annual essay prize awarded in her memory at Bristol Grammar School.
(Wikipedia)
Although almost completely forgotten by recent generations, E. H. Young was a best-selling novelist of her time. She was born the daughter of a shipbroker and attended Gateshead Secondary School (a higher grade school later renamed Gateshead Grammar School) and Penrhos College, Colwyn Bay, Wales. In 1902, at the age of 22, she married Arthur Daniell, a solicitor from Bristol, and moved with him to the upscale neighbourhood of Clifton.
Here, Young developed an interest in classical and modern philosophy. She became a supporter of the suffragette movement, and started publishing novels. She also began a lifelong affair with Ralph Henderson, a schoolteacher and a friend of her husband.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Young went to work, first as a stables groom and then in a munitions factory. Her husband was killed at the Battle of Ypres in 1917. The following year she moved to Sydenham Hill, London to join her lover, now the headmaster of the public school Alleyn's, and his wife in a ménage à trois. Young occupied a separate flat in their house and was addressed as 'Mrs Daniell'; this concealed the unconventional arrangement.
This change seems to have been the catalyst that she needed. Seven major novels followed, all based on Clifton, thinly disguised as 'Upper Radstowe'. The first of these was The Misses Mallett, published originally under the title The Bridge Dividing in 1922. Her 1930 novel Miss Mole won the James Tait Black Award for fiction. In the 1940s, Young also wrote books for children, Caravan Island (1940) and River Holiday (1942).
After Henderson's retirement and the death of his wife, Young moved with him to Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire. They never married. During the Second World War, she worked actively in air raid precautions. She lived in Wiltshire with Henderson until her death from lung cancer in 1949.
Although popular in her time, Young's work has nearly vanished today. In 1980, a four-part series based on her novels – mainly Miss Mole – was shown on BBC television as "Hannah". The feminist publishing house Virago reprinted several of her books in the 1980s, and the Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society has marked her Clifton home with a plaque.
The 'E H Young Prize for Greek Thought' was an annual essay prize awarded in her memory at Bristol Grammar School.
(Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
March 27, 2022
This is my third E.H. Young novel, the first being ‘Miss Mole’ (1930) (a 5-star read for me) and then ‘William’ (1925) (a 2.5-star read for me). I gave this a solid 3.5 stars...I am glad I read it and I found after reading it that there is a sequel, which I have, The Curate’s Wife (1934). The two sisters are Jenny and Dahlia, and I guess Dahlia takes center stage in The Curate’s Wife.
'Jenny Wren' was 352 pages long, and I was thinking at the beginning whether I really wanted to dig deeper into the book because it was a bit dry at that point. Again, one of those circumstances in which I am glad I continued to read on. It took off after a while and I grew to dislike one character in the novel in particular, a mean old woman, Miss Jewel....and I wanted her to get her come-uppance. I never really liked a whole lot the two sisters, Jenny and Dahlia. But it’s not their fault...they were just normal adolescent girls.
The back of the book gives a synopsis, and I can’t do any better than that in describing the book (and no spoilers in it):
• On their father’s death, Jenny and Dahlia Rendall, with their mother Louisa, move across the river to the heights of Upper Radstowe. Here they try to make a living by taking in lodgers. But their neighbors eye this all-female household with alarm and distrust—especially when a local farmer takes to calling on Louisa, now an attractive, if not entirely respectable widow. Dahlia takes it all with a pinch of salt; fastidious, conventional Jenny cannot. Embarrassed by her mother’s country ways, smarting at every slight, both real and imaginary, she longs for a different life. Then Jenny falls in love with a handsome young squire—but certain of his prejudice and a prisoner of her pride, she dares not reveal her name...
(Hence the first time they meet and he says “your name is Jenny... Wren?” she says ‘yes’ but of course that is not her name.)
What I liked about this novel was that the characters were believable. Also, that it’s a Virago edition, and that there was a very nice Introduction by Sally Beauman (which I read at the end...if you have this edition and have not read the novel yet, save the Intro for last because it gives too much away of the plot).
Reviews:
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2012/...
• https://acornerofcornwall.com/2018/03...
• https://fleurinherworld.com/2009/07/3...
'Jenny Wren' was 352 pages long, and I was thinking at the beginning whether I really wanted to dig deeper into the book because it was a bit dry at that point. Again, one of those circumstances in which I am glad I continued to read on. It took off after a while and I grew to dislike one character in the novel in particular, a mean old woman, Miss Jewel....and I wanted her to get her come-uppance. I never really liked a whole lot the two sisters, Jenny and Dahlia. But it’s not their fault...they were just normal adolescent girls.
The back of the book gives a synopsis, and I can’t do any better than that in describing the book (and no spoilers in it):
• On their father’s death, Jenny and Dahlia Rendall, with their mother Louisa, move across the river to the heights of Upper Radstowe. Here they try to make a living by taking in lodgers. But their neighbors eye this all-female household with alarm and distrust—especially when a local farmer takes to calling on Louisa, now an attractive, if not entirely respectable widow. Dahlia takes it all with a pinch of salt; fastidious, conventional Jenny cannot. Embarrassed by her mother’s country ways, smarting at every slight, both real and imaginary, she longs for a different life. Then Jenny falls in love with a handsome young squire—but certain of his prejudice and a prisoner of her pride, she dares not reveal her name...
(Hence the first time they meet and he says “your name is Jenny... Wren?” she says ‘yes’ but of course that is not her name.)
What I liked about this novel was that the characters were believable. Also, that it’s a Virago edition, and that there was a very nice Introduction by Sally Beauman (which I read at the end...if you have this edition and have not read the novel yet, save the Intro for last because it gives too much away of the plot).
Reviews:
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2012/...
• https://acornerofcornwall.com/2018/03...
• https://fleurinherworld.com/2009/07/3...
June 20, 2025
Jenny and her sister, Dahlia have an odd, rather betwixt and between place in society. Their mother, a very pretty farmer's daughter had married a gentleman; the marriage didn't work out as he began to resent her origins, and he sent his daughters away to school, so they were well educated and refined, Louisa's influence on them was minimal. As the novel opens, their father has died, leaving them very little, and their mother has bought a boarding house which she intends to run with their help.
Jenny falls for the squire's son who lives across the bridge, but she is ashamed of her mother and unwilling to tell him who she really is, telling him instead that she is Jenny Wren. Will she manage to find her place in society?
Jenny is not the most likeable character, but I find E.H. Young excels at rather prickly characters. With this one, I did find it started to drag a bit in the middle, but it picked up again, and I found the ending satisfying. I'm looking forward to reading The Curate's Wife, which is the sequel, and told from Dahlia's point of view; I found her a much more appealing character.
Jenny falls for the squire's son who lives across the bridge, but she is ashamed of her mother and unwilling to tell him who she really is, telling him instead that she is Jenny Wren. Will she manage to find her place in society?
Jenny is not the most likeable character, but I find E.H. Young excels at rather prickly characters. With this one, I did find it started to drag a bit in the middle, but it picked up again, and I found the ending satisfying. I'm looking forward to reading The Curate's Wife, which is the sequel, and told from Dahlia's point of view; I found her a much more appealing character.
April 24, 2022
3.5 stars, rounded up.
I've been in an English novel mood lately, and Virago Press can always be counted on to deliver. Jenny is an 18 year old ashamed of her mother, constantly worried about other people's opinions, selfish and self-centered, much like a contemporary girl of the same age. Her sister Dahlia is older, funnier, has more common sense and doesn't care what others think. Both of them get into romantic entanglements with men of a different class. The true heroine here is their mother, who makes some sacrifices in her own life for the good of her girls. Very enjoyable.
The sequel to this is The Curate's Wife, the story of Dahlia's marriage and subsequent life. Since I liked her irrepressible spirit and sense of humor much more than Jenny, I'm looking forward to that one. Anything written by E. H. Young is pretty much a sure-fire thing for me.
I've been in an English novel mood lately, and Virago Press can always be counted on to deliver. Jenny is an 18 year old ashamed of her mother, constantly worried about other people's opinions, selfish and self-centered, much like a contemporary girl of the same age. Her sister Dahlia is older, funnier, has more common sense and doesn't care what others think. Both of them get into romantic entanglements with men of a different class. The true heroine here is their mother, who makes some sacrifices in her own life for the good of her girls. Very enjoyable.
The sequel to this is The Curate's Wife, the story of Dahlia's marriage and subsequent life. Since I liked her irrepressible spirit and sense of humor much more than Jenny, I'm looking forward to that one. Anything written by E. H. Young is pretty much a sure-fire thing for me.
March 2, 2024
3.75 stars
“In the sloping, one sided street called Beulah Mount, no two houses are alike. Some of them are flat fronted, a few are bow-windowed and some have flimsy, roofed balconies outside the first floor windows, and these, even when in need of painting, give an effect of diminished but persistent gaiety to a terrace built in an age of leisure and of privilege.”
Another Virago read; this is the first of two novels. I have the next one and will read it following this one. I have previously read Chatterton Square and like that one this is also set in Bristol: renamed Radstowe. Young was a supporter of suffrage and a keen climber and mountaineer. She had a lifelong relationship with Ralph Henderson, a friend of her husband’s. After her husband’s death in the War she moved in with Henderson and his wife.
This is the story of two sisters, Jenny and Dahlia. This first novel focuses more on Jenny and the second more on Dahlia. It starts following the death of their father. They move from the country with their mother to a house in Upper Radstowe where they will take in lodgers. This being rather Engliash, there is a focus on class. Mr Rendall, Jenny and Dahlia’s father married someone (Louisa) from a lower social class. This has ramifications which ripple through the whole novel and affects the sisters in different ways. The sisters have feelings that they are of a different class to their mother, who does have a tendency to embarrass them. There are some unpleasant neighbours and of course, men! Young builds her characters gradually and with subtlety and doesn’t always take the expected route. She can be rather wordy and the plot, such as it is, meanders a bit. The minor characters are well rounded and Young is quite good at portraying insignificant lives that are full of disappointment. Young is quite clever at building her characters, like this description of the vicar, Mr Doubleday:
“Before Sunday came around again the vicar had called at No. 15 Beulah Mount. He had come and gone like a child’s india-rubber ball, lightly bouncing up the steps, into the hall and Mr Cummings’ sitting room. There he rested precariously, as a ball does, threatening to move at a breath, hovering between stability and motion, and in his repetitive, staccato speech he confirmed his likeness to a ball.”
The sisters are caught between their father’s class and their mother’s and don’t really fit into either. They also discover that desire is a double-edged sword. The most vivid character in the book is their mother Louisa, who has far less scruples than her daughters and knows how to enjoy herself (to their embarrassment). Jenny is a bit of a dreamer and the whole has a dreamlike character.
As others have pointed out there are some parallels with Sense and Sensibility, but Young doesn’t have the lightness of touch of Austen. As is often the case in this type of novel, marriage is often seen as the only way out, although the sisters take entirely different approaches. It was a bit slow, but I quite like Young’s rather pedestrian approach to these things.
“In the sloping, one sided street called Beulah Mount, no two houses are alike. Some of them are flat fronted, a few are bow-windowed and some have flimsy, roofed balconies outside the first floor windows, and these, even when in need of painting, give an effect of diminished but persistent gaiety to a terrace built in an age of leisure and of privilege.”
Another Virago read; this is the first of two novels. I have the next one and will read it following this one. I have previously read Chatterton Square and like that one this is also set in Bristol: renamed Radstowe. Young was a supporter of suffrage and a keen climber and mountaineer. She had a lifelong relationship with Ralph Henderson, a friend of her husband’s. After her husband’s death in the War she moved in with Henderson and his wife.
This is the story of two sisters, Jenny and Dahlia. This first novel focuses more on Jenny and the second more on Dahlia. It starts following the death of their father. They move from the country with their mother to a house in Upper Radstowe where they will take in lodgers. This being rather Engliash, there is a focus on class. Mr Rendall, Jenny and Dahlia’s father married someone (Louisa) from a lower social class. This has ramifications which ripple through the whole novel and affects the sisters in different ways. The sisters have feelings that they are of a different class to their mother, who does have a tendency to embarrass them. There are some unpleasant neighbours and of course, men! Young builds her characters gradually and with subtlety and doesn’t always take the expected route. She can be rather wordy and the plot, such as it is, meanders a bit. The minor characters are well rounded and Young is quite good at portraying insignificant lives that are full of disappointment. Young is quite clever at building her characters, like this description of the vicar, Mr Doubleday:
“Before Sunday came around again the vicar had called at No. 15 Beulah Mount. He had come and gone like a child’s india-rubber ball, lightly bouncing up the steps, into the hall and Mr Cummings’ sitting room. There he rested precariously, as a ball does, threatening to move at a breath, hovering between stability and motion, and in his repetitive, staccato speech he confirmed his likeness to a ball.”
The sisters are caught between their father’s class and their mother’s and don’t really fit into either. They also discover that desire is a double-edged sword. The most vivid character in the book is their mother Louisa, who has far less scruples than her daughters and knows how to enjoy herself (to their embarrassment). Jenny is a bit of a dreamer and the whole has a dreamlike character.
As others have pointed out there are some parallels with Sense and Sensibility, but Young doesn’t have the lightness of touch of Austen. As is often the case in this type of novel, marriage is often seen as the only way out, although the sisters take entirely different approaches. It was a bit slow, but I quite like Young’s rather pedestrian approach to these things.
September 4, 2024
E. H. Young is masterful at creating characters that raise your ire, draw your admiration, or capture your heart. I found all of these while reading Jenny Wren. I think the horrible Aunt Sarah was marvelously written and I have a new hero in Mr. Cunningham.
Louisa Rendall is recently widowed and has opened a boarding house, where she lives with her daughters, Jenny and Dahlia. Louisa married above her station, but she never acquired any of the graces of the class she entered; in fact, she has clung to the coarseness of her origins. Her daughters, due to their father’s diligence, have become well-educated young ladies. The class distinction is one of the prevailing themes explored in the book, and with it the question of what matters most–a good heritage or a good heart.
Young has a beautiful, engaging style. She brings all the senses to play in her writing and I felt both emotionally involved and physically present in Jenny’s life.
The sunlight was on him as he looked up at her and she gave a little stifled cry and stood still. The leaves of the birch trees were like myriads of golden coins held in clusters on silver wands: they moved on a light breeze that gathered and then scattered the scents of summer, and the sunshine brought out the smells of warm earth and resin. The sound of a tug hurrying down the river, the distant clanging of tramcar bells on the
road near the docks seemed to make walls round the wood: the sun was shining, it was high summer, they were in a world of their own and no one else existed.
Young poses many questions that most of us are forced to answer during our lifetimes. How long should a person be required to pay for a mistake made in youth? How do we know true love from infatuation? What should we seek in a partner? Do we always know what is best for us? And what pleasure do the nosy and malicious get out of exposing others’ faults? The first three questions carried much more weight at the time when this was written, as divorce was difficult if not impossible and being seen in the wrong company could ruin a girl’s reputation forever.
This is my third E. H. (Hilda) Young novel, and I am anxious to get to the rest of them. Wow, I keep adding these remarkable women writers to my repertoire. Hilda, meet Rumer, Elizabeth, Magda and Margaret.
Louisa Rendall is recently widowed and has opened a boarding house, where she lives with her daughters, Jenny and Dahlia. Louisa married above her station, but she never acquired any of the graces of the class she entered; in fact, she has clung to the coarseness of her origins. Her daughters, due to their father’s diligence, have become well-educated young ladies. The class distinction is one of the prevailing themes explored in the book, and with it the question of what matters most–a good heritage or a good heart.
Young has a beautiful, engaging style. She brings all the senses to play in her writing and I felt both emotionally involved and physically present in Jenny’s life.
The sunlight was on him as he looked up at her and she gave a little stifled cry and stood still. The leaves of the birch trees were like myriads of golden coins held in clusters on silver wands: they moved on a light breeze that gathered and then scattered the scents of summer, and the sunshine brought out the smells of warm earth and resin. The sound of a tug hurrying down the river, the distant clanging of tramcar bells on the
road near the docks seemed to make walls round the wood: the sun was shining, it was high summer, they were in a world of their own and no one else existed.
Young poses many questions that most of us are forced to answer during our lifetimes. How long should a person be required to pay for a mistake made in youth? How do we know true love from infatuation? What should we seek in a partner? Do we always know what is best for us? And what pleasure do the nosy and malicious get out of exposing others’ faults? The first three questions carried much more weight at the time when this was written, as divorce was difficult if not impossible and being seen in the wrong company could ruin a girl’s reputation forever.
This is my third E. H. (Hilda) Young novel, and I am anxious to get to the rest of them. Wow, I keep adding these remarkable women writers to my repertoire. Hilda, meet Rumer, Elizabeth, Magda and Margaret.
Read
February 27, 2023A moody novel of manners about two sisters born to parents unequally matched in their social backgrounds. Their father has tried to shield the girls from their mother's provincial influence by sending them away to school, but the novel begins after their father's early unforseen death. Now the girls move from the country to the city to run a boarding house with their mother. The novel follows the way Jenny and Dahlia respond differently to their new circumstances:
Dahlia: this could be interesting...
Jenny: WOE IS ME!!!
E.H. Young writes setting and character so distinctly and so well, that I find her stories a pleasure to read even when the characters are not being particularly likeable or making good choices. Always an author I want to come back to.
Dahlia: this could be interesting...
Jenny: WOE IS ME!!!
E.H. Young writes setting and character so distinctly and so well, that I find her stories a pleasure to read even when the characters are not being particularly likeable or making good choices. Always an author I want to come back to.
December 27, 2012
“In the sloping, one sided street called Beulah Mount, no two houses are alike. Some of them are flat fronted, a few are bow-windowed and some have flimsy, roofed balconies outside the first floor windows, and these, even when in need of painting, give an effect of diminished but persistent gaiety to a terrace built in an age of leisure and of privilege.”
Jenny and her older sister Dahlia Rendall have recently moved from their old home at the white farm, in the countryside to a house in Upper Radstowe. Here their mother has installed the first of her lodgers, young Mr Cummings, who knows about antique furniture and has ambitions for a shop of his own. Jenny and Dahlia are socially superior to their mother, taking after their gentleman father who had previously protected them from their mother’s common ways and the gossip surrounding a supposed affair years earlier. Now Jenny and Dahlia feel the sharp glances of their neighbours who see the still beautiful Louisa as not respectable and assume her daughters are no better. Dahlia is more laid back, but Jenny is acutely embarrassed by her mother, and lives in horror of her mother’s older sister Sarah descending on them. Next door – in another house of lodgers lives the vicious Miss Jewel, jealously guarding her lodger the curate Mr Sproat and watching Louisa with delicious disapproval, noticing farmer Thomas Grimshaw’s weekly visits and spying on Jenny and Dahlia too.
“Jenny stayed in the sitting room. She was wondering why, among so many disadvantages, they had to endure the daily annoyance of hearing their names mispronounced, when there were so many which could have been uttered without offence. This thought had often occurred to her father, and he had to blame himself. Louisa chose the first child’s name, when he was still sufficiently in love to forget how she would misuse it but, when Jenny was born, he insisted that her name must not end like Dahlia’s with a vowel, and characteristically overlooked the dangerous consonant. Jenny was registered, she was not christened, as Jennifer, and Louisa stubbornly refused to accept the abbreviations he and Dahlia used.”
Although a tentative friendship develops between Jenny and Edwin Cummings the lodger, Jenny dreams of another life, a life she feels must be denied her because of her mother. So when Jenny meets the handsome young squire Cyril Merriman – Jenny is afraid of him knowing her real name. Cyril meets Jenny secretly in the woods and fields that she loves – believing her name to be called Jenny Wren. Dahlia meanwhile befriends the rather serious Mr Sproat, who given the task of finding more lodgers for the Rendalls, encourages the rather sad little Miss Morrison to make her home with them. Poor Miss Morrison, who sees Mr Sproat’s interest in her living arrangements as being something more than they are.
This is a novel about social inequalities and the dissatisfaction that this can cause. Dahlia and Jenny’s father married beneath him, and rued the day. He made sure that his daughters grew up young ladies, but they are now caught between the class they feel part of and their mother’s background, and the realities of living in a boarding house. Louisa works hard for her daughters, beginning sadly to acknowledge that she may be holding them back. Jenny and Dahlia have to learn that those things which are best for them and will provide for them a safer happier and more stable future are maybe closer than they thought.
Having read other E H Young books – I could see where the story was going right from the start, although this predictability didn’t in any way spoil it for me. I already have the sequel to this novel; The Curate’s Wife on my TBR and I am looking forward to it. Although not my favourite E H Young novel to date – that would be William, this is an excellent novel, I love E H Young’s Upper Radstowe, and the small disappointed lives she often writes about.
Jenny and her older sister Dahlia Rendall have recently moved from their old home at the white farm, in the countryside to a house in Upper Radstowe. Here their mother has installed the first of her lodgers, young Mr Cummings, who knows about antique furniture and has ambitions for a shop of his own. Jenny and Dahlia are socially superior to their mother, taking after their gentleman father who had previously protected them from their mother’s common ways and the gossip surrounding a supposed affair years earlier. Now Jenny and Dahlia feel the sharp glances of their neighbours who see the still beautiful Louisa as not respectable and assume her daughters are no better. Dahlia is more laid back, but Jenny is acutely embarrassed by her mother, and lives in horror of her mother’s older sister Sarah descending on them. Next door – in another house of lodgers lives the vicious Miss Jewel, jealously guarding her lodger the curate Mr Sproat and watching Louisa with delicious disapproval, noticing farmer Thomas Grimshaw’s weekly visits and spying on Jenny and Dahlia too.
“Jenny stayed in the sitting room. She was wondering why, among so many disadvantages, they had to endure the daily annoyance of hearing their names mispronounced, when there were so many which could have been uttered without offence. This thought had often occurred to her father, and he had to blame himself. Louisa chose the first child’s name, when he was still sufficiently in love to forget how she would misuse it but, when Jenny was born, he insisted that her name must not end like Dahlia’s with a vowel, and characteristically overlooked the dangerous consonant. Jenny was registered, she was not christened, as Jennifer, and Louisa stubbornly refused to accept the abbreviations he and Dahlia used.”
Although a tentative friendship develops between Jenny and Edwin Cummings the lodger, Jenny dreams of another life, a life she feels must be denied her because of her mother. So when Jenny meets the handsome young squire Cyril Merriman – Jenny is afraid of him knowing her real name. Cyril meets Jenny secretly in the woods and fields that she loves – believing her name to be called Jenny Wren. Dahlia meanwhile befriends the rather serious Mr Sproat, who given the task of finding more lodgers for the Rendalls, encourages the rather sad little Miss Morrison to make her home with them. Poor Miss Morrison, who sees Mr Sproat’s interest in her living arrangements as being something more than they are.
This is a novel about social inequalities and the dissatisfaction that this can cause. Dahlia and Jenny’s father married beneath him, and rued the day. He made sure that his daughters grew up young ladies, but they are now caught between the class they feel part of and their mother’s background, and the realities of living in a boarding house. Louisa works hard for her daughters, beginning sadly to acknowledge that she may be holding them back. Jenny and Dahlia have to learn that those things which are best for them and will provide for them a safer happier and more stable future are maybe closer than they thought.
Having read other E H Young books – I could see where the story was going right from the start, although this predictability didn’t in any way spoil it for me. I already have the sequel to this novel; The Curate’s Wife on my TBR and I am looking forward to it. Although not my favourite E H Young novel to date – that would be William, this is an excellent novel, I love E H Young’s Upper Radstowe, and the small disappointed lives she often writes about.
April 29, 2017
This book precedes The Curate's Wife which I did not know. I shall have to eventually re-read that one with what I learned in Jenny Wren. As I read this, one theme kept running through my head: the choices we make in life affect far more than just ourselves, especially where offspring are concerned. This is a book to set you thinking.
February 16, 2009
n the 1980's Penguin began to publish a series called Virago Modern Classics. They are not "classics" in the sense of Dickens and Austen, but rather are reprintings of novels written by women in the 20's, 30's and 40's which had been largely forgotten by the 1980's. Persephone Books in London does a similar thing today. Anyways, being a fan of fiction from that era and of women's writing and somewhat of magpie, I have begun collecting the Virago books when I see them at used bookstores. They are easy to pick out, with their distinctive green bindings, and should be fun to read, since the criteria for inclusion is broad enough that the subject matter, style and tone will (hopefully) vary widely based on author. Jenny Wren was the first of my collection that I actually read, and I really enjoyed it.
Jenny Wren tells the story of Jenny and Dahlia Randall, two sisters negotiating their position in the world in a small British city (based on Brighton) in the 1920's. They are caught between two social classes - their father was a gentleman, and raised them to be ladies, but he has died, and they are now living with their lower-class mother, running a boarding house in the city. They were raised to be their father's children and have little in common with their mother, who doesn't speak or act like them -and yet, they are in her world, making their own living and trying to figure out what will happen to them. The back cover calls Jenny Wren a "scathing satire," but I disagree. Young is too kind to her characters to be scathing. Instead, (as the introduction said, so no credit to me for this one), Young's satire is like Austen's - critical, but still fond. Young hits class in England hard, and her characters (especially Jenny) are somewhat ridiculous in their hang-ups about class. It is absolutely maddening when Jenny overlooks the kind boarder who not only loves her but understands her (but works in the trades - even if it is the antique trade, so he understands fine things), for an obsession/fling with a young gentleman who: 1) she is ashamed to tell her family about; 2) she barely knows and 3) even she admits is young and foolish and with whom she would never have a true meeting of the minds. Jenny is so wrapped up in her own head and her feelings that I wanted to shake her. But Young's gift is that she makes every character - from foolish Jenny, to more practical Dahlia, to their mother, who never had a chance to know her children, but makes a true (if ultimately worthless) sacrifice to make her daughters happy - real people, with sympathetic and understandable motives. Even if we don't like a character, we understand them, and their actions arise from their personalities - like real people. For that reason alone the book rises above "scathing" satire, to a story of real people. Young mocks the class system, certainly, but she doesn't make her characters ridiculous. From the pinched spinster who owns the neighboring boarding house to the curate next door, who loves Dahlia despite himself, each character is given the dignity of real and realistic actions.
As you can see, I was impressed by this book. My only complaint was that the story was left unfinished - I had to go to Powell's and buy the sequel (luckily, Virago also reprinted that one) to find out what happened to the characters!
Jenny Wren tells the story of Jenny and Dahlia Randall, two sisters negotiating their position in the world in a small British city (based on Brighton) in the 1920's. They are caught between two social classes - their father was a gentleman, and raised them to be ladies, but he has died, and they are now living with their lower-class mother, running a boarding house in the city. They were raised to be their father's children and have little in common with their mother, who doesn't speak or act like them -and yet, they are in her world, making their own living and trying to figure out what will happen to them. The back cover calls Jenny Wren a "scathing satire," but I disagree. Young is too kind to her characters to be scathing. Instead, (as the introduction said, so no credit to me for this one), Young's satire is like Austen's - critical, but still fond. Young hits class in England hard, and her characters (especially Jenny) are somewhat ridiculous in their hang-ups about class. It is absolutely maddening when Jenny overlooks the kind boarder who not only loves her but understands her (but works in the trades - even if it is the antique trade, so he understands fine things), for an obsession/fling with a young gentleman who: 1) she is ashamed to tell her family about; 2) she barely knows and 3) even she admits is young and foolish and with whom she would never have a true meeting of the minds. Jenny is so wrapped up in her own head and her feelings that I wanted to shake her. But Young's gift is that she makes every character - from foolish Jenny, to more practical Dahlia, to their mother, who never had a chance to know her children, but makes a true (if ultimately worthless) sacrifice to make her daughters happy - real people, with sympathetic and understandable motives. Even if we don't like a character, we understand them, and their actions arise from their personalities - like real people. For that reason alone the book rises above "scathing" satire, to a story of real people. Young mocks the class system, certainly, but she doesn't make her characters ridiculous. From the pinched spinster who owns the neighboring boarding house to the curate next door, who loves Dahlia despite himself, each character is given the dignity of real and realistic actions.
As you can see, I was impressed by this book. My only complaint was that the story was left unfinished - I had to go to Powell's and buy the sequel (luckily, Virago also reprinted that one) to find out what happened to the characters!
February 14, 2023
Charming story of disappointed love and the painful struggle against class constraints. The Rendell family have been impoverished by Mr Rendell’s death, and are now running a shabbily genteel boarding house in Upper Radstowe. Younger daughter Jenny is rather snobbish and is ashamed of her lower class mother (who also has a rather racy past), and when she meets the local squire she begins to dream of a very different future.
This is no sugary sweet story - it has a gentle tone but also has some sharp observations about the hypocrisy and selfishness of the class system. Jenny herself is not a particularly likeable character, and there are a couple of elderly female characters who are brilliantly drawn in all their spiteful and bitter scheming. Yet there are also moments of kindness and hope, and Young’s depiction of the inexplicable but all-powerful effects of love is convincing and perceptive.
The book is slightly drawn out in places but there was enough variety in the plot lines to keep my attention, and there were many charming and memorable scenes. Really enjoyable story from a very skilful and thoughtful author.
This is no sugary sweet story - it has a gentle tone but also has some sharp observations about the hypocrisy and selfishness of the class system. Jenny herself is not a particularly likeable character, and there are a couple of elderly female characters who are brilliantly drawn in all their spiteful and bitter scheming. Yet there are also moments of kindness and hope, and Young’s depiction of the inexplicable but all-powerful effects of love is convincing and perceptive.
The book is slightly drawn out in places but there was enough variety in the plot lines to keep my attention, and there were many charming and memorable scenes. Really enjoyable story from a very skilful and thoughtful author.
April 1, 2023
This was a slow read for me. I didn't often feel compelled to read more than one chapter at a time. This review was also a long time in coming because I wasn't sure how to form my thoughts about the book. I love E.H. Young's writing, though I do find it more dense at times. I'm sure that slowed my reading down. It's a little more like reading Jane Austen than someone like Wilkie Collins. There is a lot teeming under the surface in an Austen novel.
I think another thing that slowed my reading down was that I couldn't quite get a read on each of the characters. I couldn't tell if they were going to fall into the "lovable" or "unlovable" camp. I know it's more complex than that, but I usually have a better sense for how invested to be in a character earlier on. For example, I wasn't sure how invested to be in Edwin Cummings. He starts off as a lodger and lodgers are supposed to come and go. I honestly didn't pay much attention to him early in the novel and it turns out that I should have. I'm not sure if this is a flaw on the novel's part or in my attentiveness as a reader. I think re-reading this novel would make a difference; I think I would savor it more and enjoy its slower pace.
I think another reason I felt less compelled to pick up the book is that I didn't love Jenny. I actually rather dislike her. Is she supposed to be unlikable? I can't really tell. She falls into a class of characters that drive me nuts: a young person who pines away with love for an unsuitable suitor. (More on Jenny soon.)
That being said, one of the whole questions of this novel is about suitability. Jenny and Dahlia Rendall are sisters whose upper class father married their lower class mother (Louisa) after a brief infatuation with her. He defies his family to marry her and it turns out that the marriage isn't that happy. Mr. Rendall has raised his daughters to fit into his world (even though the Rendall family is estranged from his world) and to be ashamed of their mother and her origins. The girls (close in age and in their late teens/early 20s), are well spoken and well educated, but their father is now dead. Louisa, Jenny, and Dahlia have no money and few skills. Eliza Doolittle's question in Pygamalion comes to mind: 'What am I fit for?'
The Rendall women have a family "friend" who loans them money to purchase a house so they can take in lodgers. It's an old solution for gentlewomen fallen on hard times and it seems like it's working decently well at the start of the novel. It's not exactly unsuitable, though Jenny feels the degradation keenly and none of the women are really that fit for the work required. The story that follows is about the love lives of the three women, the lodgers who come and go, and the mother/daughter relationship between Louisa and Jenny/Dahlia.
Jenny and Dahlia are incredibly different in temperament. Dahlia is a "water off a duck's back" kind of person. She's cheerful and fun-loving and doesn't take herself or others too seriously. She is much less bothered by their mother's "vulgarity" and their own dubious position on the social ladder. She's also beautiful and confident. Jenny is elfin. She's slim and boyish in figure. She's sensitive and self-absorbed and mourning her father's loss because she loved everything he stood for: gentility and a world of privilege.
Jenny meets a local landowner's son by chance in a field and they strike up a "forbidden" romance. Jenny is ashamed to admit that her last name is Rendall because that will expose her mixed class background and the rumors about her mother, so she calls herself Jenny Wren. I use the word forbidden because it feels that intense to Jenny, almost like a Romeo and Juliet situation. She has a gut instinct that one indiscreet comment on her part will let her whole Jenny Wren facade crash down. Of course, secrets will out... I put forbidden in quotation marks because the situation is much more intense to Jenny than it is to anyone else. It affects her behavior and those who notice it are puzzled.
Of course, having just read Our Mutual Friend with the inimitable character Jenny Wren, I was working hard to figure out the parallels between the two. Later in the novel, the two girls create and sew dolls with their lodger Miss Morrison and this leads to a significant plot point for Dahlia's storyline. Jenny Wren in Dickens' novel is often referred to as 'the dolls' dressmaker'. Dickens' Jenny Wren is also using that name instead of her real name (Fanny Cleaver), so she and Jenny Rendall have that in common as well. The other similarities between the two feel less distinct, and I don't recall seeing any explicit reference to Dickens in the text. I'm still pondering on this.
Obviously, a book that I've written this much about isn't a bad read. I felt mostly satisfied when I finished it and would be willing to read it again. But it has more ambivalence to it than I like perhaps.
I think another thing that slowed my reading down was that I couldn't quite get a read on each of the characters. I couldn't tell if they were going to fall into the "lovable" or "unlovable" camp. I know it's more complex than that, but I usually have a better sense for how invested to be in a character earlier on. For example, I wasn't sure how invested to be in Edwin Cummings. He starts off as a lodger and lodgers are supposed to come and go. I honestly didn't pay much attention to him early in the novel and it turns out that I should have. I'm not sure if this is a flaw on the novel's part or in my attentiveness as a reader. I think re-reading this novel would make a difference; I think I would savor it more and enjoy its slower pace.
I think another reason I felt less compelled to pick up the book is that I didn't love Jenny. I actually rather dislike her. Is she supposed to be unlikable? I can't really tell. She falls into a class of characters that drive me nuts: a young person who pines away with love for an unsuitable suitor. (More on Jenny soon.)
That being said, one of the whole questions of this novel is about suitability. Jenny and Dahlia Rendall are sisters whose upper class father married their lower class mother (Louisa) after a brief infatuation with her. He defies his family to marry her and it turns out that the marriage isn't that happy. Mr. Rendall has raised his daughters to fit into his world (even though the Rendall family is estranged from his world) and to be ashamed of their mother and her origins. The girls (close in age and in their late teens/early 20s), are well spoken and well educated, but their father is now dead. Louisa, Jenny, and Dahlia have no money and few skills. Eliza Doolittle's question in Pygamalion comes to mind: 'What am I fit for?'
The Rendall women have a family "friend" who loans them money to purchase a house so they can take in lodgers. It's an old solution for gentlewomen fallen on hard times and it seems like it's working decently well at the start of the novel. It's not exactly unsuitable, though Jenny feels the degradation keenly and none of the women are really that fit for the work required. The story that follows is about the love lives of the three women, the lodgers who come and go, and the mother/daughter relationship between Louisa and Jenny/Dahlia.
Jenny and Dahlia are incredibly different in temperament. Dahlia is a "water off a duck's back" kind of person. She's cheerful and fun-loving and doesn't take herself or others too seriously. She is much less bothered by their mother's "vulgarity" and their own dubious position on the social ladder. She's also beautiful and confident. Jenny is elfin. She's slim and boyish in figure. She's sensitive and self-absorbed and mourning her father's loss because she loved everything he stood for: gentility and a world of privilege.
Jenny meets a local landowner's son by chance in a field and they strike up a "forbidden" romance. Jenny is ashamed to admit that her last name is Rendall because that will expose her mixed class background and the rumors about her mother, so she calls herself Jenny Wren. I use the word forbidden because it feels that intense to Jenny, almost like a Romeo and Juliet situation. She has a gut instinct that one indiscreet comment on her part will let her whole Jenny Wren facade crash down. Of course, secrets will out... I put forbidden in quotation marks because the situation is much more intense to Jenny than it is to anyone else. It affects her behavior and those who notice it are puzzled.
Of course, having just read Our Mutual Friend with the inimitable character Jenny Wren, I was working hard to figure out the parallels between the two. Later in the novel, the two girls create and sew dolls with their lodger Miss Morrison and this leads to a significant plot point for Dahlia's storyline. Jenny Wren in Dickens' novel is often referred to as 'the dolls' dressmaker'. Dickens' Jenny Wren is also using that name instead of her real name (Fanny Cleaver), so she and Jenny Rendall have that in common as well. The other similarities between the two feel less distinct, and I don't recall seeing any explicit reference to Dickens in the text. I'm still pondering on this.
Obviously, a book that I've written this much about isn't a bad read. I felt mostly satisfied when I finished it and would be willing to read it again. But it has more ambivalence to it than I like perhaps.
January 19, 2024
Like everybody else, she wanted to change the world and its inhabitants to suit herself.
E.H. Young had definitely an observant eye. Her characters were fascinating and complex. It was interesting how she analyzed social/class prejudice.
Yet, the first half of this book was a struggle for me. I kept losing interest or attention. With many other authors, I would have given up. I am glad I didn't. The second part held firmer my attention.
The story was important, not only as a question about class prejudice but also as an exploration of the relationship between a mother (a father) and daughters and a view at first young love.
[3.5 stars, although there was potential for 5 stars]
September 24, 2016
A charming, ironic novel of class differences and romantic disappointments. E.H. Young, writing in the 1930s, handles the themes of the limitations of her heroines (a beautiful widow, and her two daughters who mus eke out a living by taking lodgers) while at the same time presenting her male characters (especially Jenny's would-be lover, Edwin) with extreme sympathy. There is no sugar-coated ending; and it's left to the reader to judge the choices of the three women. A novel of humor and insight,
June 13, 2014
Interesting and old-fashioned read. Set in the early 20th century, I kept feeling like it was in the 1880s. The story focuses on Jenny, her sister Dahlia, and their widowed mother, who are running a boarding house in an English city based on Bristol. Really highlights the role of women and social class at the time.
February 1, 2021
Absolute corker.
Read
April 28, 2024A sort of mid-range book. I didn't find it awful, but I didn't find it strongly good either. For me, the main problem lies in the protagonist who is, ultimately, selfish and can only see anything in terms of how it affects her; she cannot seem to imagine how her own actions might affect anyone else. It is a novel about class divisions and social prejudice, as well as one about 'interfering old biddies.' It does tend to drag a bit in the middle, though recovers effectively towards the ending--in which Twelfth Night plays an interesting subsidiary role.
December 12, 2023
Well-written but a bit of a slog.
December 19, 2012
Well-written reminder of the limited options available to women in the 1930s, not to mention the power of class to influence lives. The introduction to this edition (best read afterward) has an excellent analysis of the novel and backstory on the author.
July 24, 2011
Stop bugging me about reviews
November 29, 2021
3.5, more later.
July 19, 2025
‘Jenny Wren’ (1932) is EH. Young’s most accomplished study of complex family relationships, class distinctions, coming of age, infatuation, and the search for security among all women at any age and of whatever station in life to which they belong or think they are entitled to be. Note that in this enumeration, the word ‘love’ is conspicuously missing.
This is not a romance, but a struggle to maintain a class distinction that need not have mattered in the least. Unfortunately, it had mattered to the father of the two young sisters in the novel, a scholarly gentleman who had so far forgotten class distinctions as to have fallen in love with, and married Louisa, uneducated but cheerful, high-spirited and lovely. After the marriage, he remembered that after all, she was only a country girl, brought up on a farm, and despised her accordingly, making sure that their daughters did not learn their mother's vulgarisms. Upon his death, Louisa decides to keep the two girls by her, as well as to buy a house and take in lodgers for a living.
Louisa, for all her gaiety and charm, is not a good housewife, and her boarding house rather repels than attracts prospective lodgers. Dahlia, her elder daughter, thinks nothing of it, but Jenny is deeply disturbed by the vulgarity of keeping a boarding house, and particularly of the rumours that are whispered of her mother, that she had been unfaithful to her husband during his lifetime, and that the lover was still a faithful follower. Jenny loses no chance in showing Mr Thomas Grimshaw her scorn, until one day he turns on her with the information that Louisa owed him a large sum of money.
It is at this point that the divergences begin. For the young girls, this is by way of a coming of age story. Dahlia has her own narrative (‘The Curate's Wife’), so this book is mostly about Jenny. There are two other key women, Louisa Rendall and her sister Sarah, who comes visiting, and decides to stay and run the house as a respectable boarding house should be run. Sarah should know, for until recently, she had been housekeeper in a great house, where she had worked every since she had been a scullery maid. Upon the death of the master, the household had been broken up, and Sarah came to her sister while she looked for another situation. Once installed, however, she sees that she has landed herself a much more satisfactory place than any that might be offered to her. And so she plans and schemes, in the kindest way possible.
Louisa Rendall, although she stays in the background, is one of the nicest people in the book, if even her morals are a little ragged and her manners and accent a little less than refined. She bursts with love and anxiety for her daughters’ futures, and at the end, sacrifices herself and her dreams of independence, so that her social status might not interfere with the daughters' chances of making respectable (and evenly matched) marriages.
Jenny is fastidious and longs for the good things in a different class of society - books, theatre, good dresses. In this she is a very foolish girl, as events prove. One of the lodgers, a cabinet-maker’s assistant, dreams of having his own shop one day. He is smitten by Jenny’s dainty taste and looks, and pays court to her, but Jenny is carried away by dreams of a handsome princeling on a white horse. When he does appear, his horse is not white, and he isn't quite as democratic as Cinderella’s prince. Indeed, Jenny fears to reveal her identity to him, in case her class should betray her, which happens when after a few enchanted weeks, she tells him the truth about herself. The lodger, Mr Cummings, tells Jenny that she is unthinking, insensitive, selfish and self-centred. When she protests that nobody seems to like her for long, he very bluntly replies,
“Because you only like them yourself when you're in trouble. I know just happy or miserable you are by the way you treat me. When you're happy, you don't see me.”
A thoroughly enjoyable book, but not recommended if this is your first EH Young novel. It is a little slow in the beginning, and there is no apparent plot, just life unfolding itself the way it does, without direction. I missed Young's gentle irony, except in the marvellous portraits of Aunt Sarah and Miss Jewell, the Competition, whose lodger is the highly respectable curate Mr Sproat. Nothing else shows up the distinction in the two generations as these two old women.
Not only is the book a study of types, it is a fairly accurate picture of life between the wars, when real security and social standing in a woman's life meant that not only had she to be well educated, but to be married to an educated man. Not until the great upheaval in the next few years would things settle enough to make a mockery of class and rank as defining actual worth.
This is not a romance, but a struggle to maintain a class distinction that need not have mattered in the least. Unfortunately, it had mattered to the father of the two young sisters in the novel, a scholarly gentleman who had so far forgotten class distinctions as to have fallen in love with, and married Louisa, uneducated but cheerful, high-spirited and lovely. After the marriage, he remembered that after all, she was only a country girl, brought up on a farm, and despised her accordingly, making sure that their daughters did not learn their mother's vulgarisms. Upon his death, Louisa decides to keep the two girls by her, as well as to buy a house and take in lodgers for a living.
Louisa, for all her gaiety and charm, is not a good housewife, and her boarding house rather repels than attracts prospective lodgers. Dahlia, her elder daughter, thinks nothing of it, but Jenny is deeply disturbed by the vulgarity of keeping a boarding house, and particularly of the rumours that are whispered of her mother, that she had been unfaithful to her husband during his lifetime, and that the lover was still a faithful follower. Jenny loses no chance in showing Mr Thomas Grimshaw her scorn, until one day he turns on her with the information that Louisa owed him a large sum of money.
It is at this point that the divergences begin. For the young girls, this is by way of a coming of age story. Dahlia has her own narrative (‘The Curate's Wife’), so this book is mostly about Jenny. There are two other key women, Louisa Rendall and her sister Sarah, who comes visiting, and decides to stay and run the house as a respectable boarding house should be run. Sarah should know, for until recently, she had been housekeeper in a great house, where she had worked every since she had been a scullery maid. Upon the death of the master, the household had been broken up, and Sarah came to her sister while she looked for another situation. Once installed, however, she sees that she has landed herself a much more satisfactory place than any that might be offered to her. And so she plans and schemes, in the kindest way possible.
Louisa Rendall, although she stays in the background, is one of the nicest people in the book, if even her morals are a little ragged and her manners and accent a little less than refined. She bursts with love and anxiety for her daughters’ futures, and at the end, sacrifices herself and her dreams of independence, so that her social status might not interfere with the daughters' chances of making respectable (and evenly matched) marriages.
Jenny is fastidious and longs for the good things in a different class of society - books, theatre, good dresses. In this she is a very foolish girl, as events prove. One of the lodgers, a cabinet-maker’s assistant, dreams of having his own shop one day. He is smitten by Jenny’s dainty taste and looks, and pays court to her, but Jenny is carried away by dreams of a handsome princeling on a white horse. When he does appear, his horse is not white, and he isn't quite as democratic as Cinderella’s prince. Indeed, Jenny fears to reveal her identity to him, in case her class should betray her, which happens when after a few enchanted weeks, she tells him the truth about herself. The lodger, Mr Cummings, tells Jenny that she is unthinking, insensitive, selfish and self-centred. When she protests that nobody seems to like her for long, he very bluntly replies,
“Because you only like them yourself when you're in trouble. I know just happy or miserable you are by the way you treat me. When you're happy, you don't see me.”
A thoroughly enjoyable book, but not recommended if this is your first EH Young novel. It is a little slow in the beginning, and there is no apparent plot, just life unfolding itself the way it does, without direction. I missed Young's gentle irony, except in the marvellous portraits of Aunt Sarah and Miss Jewell, the Competition, whose lodger is the highly respectable curate Mr Sproat. Nothing else shows up the distinction in the two generations as these two old women.
Not only is the book a study of types, it is a fairly accurate picture of life between the wars, when real security and social standing in a woman's life meant that not only had she to be well educated, but to be married to an educated man. Not until the great upheaval in the next few years would things settle enough to make a mockery of class and rank as defining actual worth.
January 9, 2025
This was the perfect book to start the year with buddy reading with my dear friend Megan! I’m so glad she suggested this one and I’m still sitting here reeling from having finished this fantastic story.
Young is definitely becoming a favorite author because she writes such beautiful, mesmerizing, and intelligent prose. You just want to read it over and over to allow it to wash over you in its sublimity.
Here we meet the Rendalls, two daughters (Jenny and Dahlia) and their mother (Louisa) who have started a lodging house after the death of Louisa’s husband. Louisa had married above her station and her husband had raised his daughters to be genteel and well educated. However, Louisa has had a difficult time connecting with them because of her more common ways. Now that they are on their own, with debts and no prospects for a future, the Rendalls find themselves the talk of the neighborhood (because of Louisa’s unrefined behavior) and Jenny and Dahlia do what they can to minimize their embarrassment.
Jenny is an 18-year-old girl who is lost in her head full of dreams and castles in the air. She can be ungracious and selfish in her interactions especially with their lodger, Mr. Cummings. She dreams of her prince charming and one day finds him across the bridge in the big house in the country. But will her prince charming accept her?
Dahlia is a practical and realistic girl who sees her future as one she must make herself. At 20, she feels old despite being beautiful and still desirable. She works and schemes a way for the curate, Mr. Sproat, to help them acquire more lodgers because they are lacking and need the money. She brings an element of fun and laughter throughout.
Young’s prose leaves you wanting more with its ease and beauty. And I won’t hesitate to continue reading more of her books!
The sunlight was on him as he looked up at her and she gave a little stifled cry and stood still. The leaves of the birch trees were like myriads of golden coins held in clusters on silver wands: they moved on a light breeze that gathered and then scattered the scent of summer, and the sunshine brought out the smells of warm earth and resin.
…she was young love, young desire, wrapped and rocked in the ecstasy of a caress which was more perfect in the liberty of her imagination than it had been in fact. It was almost as though, half conscious, she floated on a smoothly heaving sea and without a struggle, she sank into it and slept.
Young is definitely becoming a favorite author because she writes such beautiful, mesmerizing, and intelligent prose. You just want to read it over and over to allow it to wash over you in its sublimity.
Here we meet the Rendalls, two daughters (Jenny and Dahlia) and their mother (Louisa) who have started a lodging house after the death of Louisa’s husband. Louisa had married above her station and her husband had raised his daughters to be genteel and well educated. However, Louisa has had a difficult time connecting with them because of her more common ways. Now that they are on their own, with debts and no prospects for a future, the Rendalls find themselves the talk of the neighborhood (because of Louisa’s unrefined behavior) and Jenny and Dahlia do what they can to minimize their embarrassment.
Jenny is an 18-year-old girl who is lost in her head full of dreams and castles in the air. She can be ungracious and selfish in her interactions especially with their lodger, Mr. Cummings. She dreams of her prince charming and one day finds him across the bridge in the big house in the country. But will her prince charming accept her?
Dahlia is a practical and realistic girl who sees her future as one she must make herself. At 20, she feels old despite being beautiful and still desirable. She works and schemes a way for the curate, Mr. Sproat, to help them acquire more lodgers because they are lacking and need the money. She brings an element of fun and laughter throughout.
Young’s prose leaves you wanting more with its ease and beauty. And I won’t hesitate to continue reading more of her books!
The sunlight was on him as he looked up at her and she gave a little stifled cry and stood still. The leaves of the birch trees were like myriads of golden coins held in clusters on silver wands: they moved on a light breeze that gathered and then scattered the scent of summer, and the sunshine brought out the smells of warm earth and resin.
…she was young love, young desire, wrapped and rocked in the ecstasy of a caress which was more perfect in the liberty of her imagination than it had been in fact. It was almost as though, half conscious, she floated on a smoothly heaving sea and without a struggle, she sank into it and slept.
February 15, 2025
"Miss Jewel, standing at the bottom of her area steps, had bidden Sarah good morning and worked her unaccustomed lips into a smile." Unaccustomed lips- genius phrasing.
The story of 2 sisters, stuck between classes, and punished by their mother's transgressions.
I loved that there were 6 female characters, all flawed! Even their relationships with each other were flawed, which is so realistic. They're all so self aware.
For me, it was about choices- what choices you have based on circumstances, what option you choose, and if you're prepared to deal with the consequences.
Who you love may not be a choice, but who you end up with is.
I loved that Jenny knew why she loved Cyril and why it would not work.
I loved when Dahlia threw the duster out the window to get Mr. Sprout's attention and it worked.
In the end, only Mr. Sprout gets his heart's desire and he doubted if it was right but was truly honest with himself (I can't wait to read the sequel because I believe it's all about him & Dahlia).
The story of 2 sisters, stuck between classes, and punished by their mother's transgressions.
I loved that there were 6 female characters, all flawed! Even their relationships with each other were flawed, which is so realistic. They're all so self aware.
For me, it was about choices- what choices you have based on circumstances, what option you choose, and if you're prepared to deal with the consequences.
Who you love may not be a choice, but who you end up with is.
I loved that Jenny knew why she loved Cyril and why it would not work.
I loved when Dahlia threw the duster out the window to get Mr. Sprout's attention and it worked.
In the end, only Mr. Sprout gets his heart's desire and he doubted if it was right but was truly honest with himself (I can't wait to read the sequel because I believe it's all about him & Dahlia).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 28, 2025
While overall I can't say I loved the book, and perhaps that was due to its plot overall, I did enjoy the complexity and carefully thought out characters. The main theme of class, is in many ways dated, and how the characters manoeuvre and react within that netting is surprising to the modern reader. In some ways it felt some decades before the 1930s, and the occasional mention of something like the cinema confusing one's image of the setting. Underlying it however, the tensions of wanting to fit in, to be fashionable, to keep one's dignity (how one does that has definitely changed over time!), still exist, particularly among young women, as Jenny is, or teenagers. Carefully chosen similes and descriptions bring the characters and setting to life, although at times the sentences go on and on getting confusing!
November 3, 2023
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2023...
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Want to read
November 19, 2017Recommendation from Teresa (@teereads) - 11/16/2017
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