The Story of Lilly Dawson

by Catherine Crowe, Ruth Heholt (Editor)

Shipwrecked as a young girl, middle-class Lilly Dawson is kidnapped by smugglers and forced to work as their servant. Terrified by the prospect of a forced marriage, this Victorian Cinderella flees captivity and has to navigate an outside world she finds both oppressive and dangerous. The Story of Lilly Dawson is a romping tale of pirates, outlaws, murder, mistaken identity, lust and betrayal. Best known for The Night Side of Nature , Crowe was one of the most successful women novelists of the mid-nineteenth century. Through her memorable heroine, Crowe insists that woman can “play a noble part in the world’s history, if man would . . . not treat her like a full-grown baby to be flattered and spoilt on the one hand, and coerced and restricted on the other, vibrating between royal rule and slavish serfdom”. As Ruth Heholt argues in her introduction, The Story of Lilly Dawson places Crowe in the vanguard of the emerging sensation genre and shows her to be a visionary and radical thinker and writer. The London Messenger called it “a novel of rare merit”, while The Literary Gazette praised Crowe’s “[Crowe’s] chief merit will […] be found in the exact descriptions of manners and feelings of the vile and lowly personages with whom she has peopled her page. Her ostlers, washerwomen, servants, beggars, villains, &c. &c., have all the semblance of realities; and we are surprised how any female in the better walks of life could learn to represent them in so vivid and apparently accurate a style.” This edition Ruth Heholt is senior lecturer in English at Falmouth University. She specialises in the supernatural and the Gothic. She is editor of the e-journal Critical and Creative Studies of the Supernatural and has published articles and chapters on various aspects of the supernatural. She is editor of a special edition of Victoriographies entitled ‘Haunted Men’ (2014). She is currently working on an edited collection, Regional Gothic , with William Hughes and a special issue of Contemporary Women Writers with Fiona Peters and Gina Wisker on Ruth Rendell.

Genres: Victorian, 19th Century, Fiction

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1847

About the author

Catherine Crowe was an English author of dramas, children's books, and novels. She is remembered mainly for her publication The Night-side of Nature, a collection of stories of the supernatural.

Oxford DNB: (Crowe [née Stevens], Catherine Ann (1790-1872), novelist and writer on the supernatural, born 20 September 1790, died 14 June 1872)

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lately I been hunting for Victorian novelists who were read widely during the period but have not endured the test of time. Call it curiosity, call it a need to find a hidden gem of a writer, or, perhaps even call it frustrating, it is an interesting journey, and, at times, a rewarding one.

Catherine Crowe was heralded in the 19C as being as famous as Dickens or Thackeray. Crowe's The Story of Lilly Dawson Has one of the first depictions of a novel with a detective figure who figures prominently. Literary historians tell us her work was known by famous authors including Charlotte Bronte, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Eliot, Thomas Carlyle. Crowe dined with Wilkie Collins. Apparently, Crowe had some form of a breakdown in 1854 and was found on the street completely naked. Dickens and Bulwer-Lytton exchanged letters on this occurrence.

The Story of Lilly Dawson is a ménage of a sensational novel, a mystery novel and a melodrama. It traces the life of Lilly Dawson who was the lone survivor of a shipwreck. Kidnapped by pirates, she grows up ignorant of her past. Lots of twists, turns, dramatic events, a couple of horrific deaths and 400 some pages later Lilly is re-connected with family. You can guess the rest!

There are reasons why Crowe is not a household work like Dickens, Eliot or Collins. Her writing, while having some interesting features, lacks the creative imagination which is needed to transcend artistic conventionality and raise itself into the ranks of creative experience with new insights into humankind. Crowe gives us glimpses but never the clear vision of the first rank of Victorian authors. While she offers much to discuss in her writing there is ultimately little to remember.

I would read this book to introduce yourself to a once-respected and highly successful Victorian novelist. With your expectations modest, this may well be an enjoyable experience. It was for me.

[John Gillespie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catherine Crowe is the third writer I've explored of the seven Shelley DeWees lionizes in Not Just Jane. Like M.E. Braddon and Charlotte Turner Smith, Crowe's life was intriguing and contrary to Victorian era expectations and stereotypes. The superb Victorian Secrets e-book edition is an amazing find. The introduction, footnotes, and supplemental materials are excellent and provide much-needed context, especially if you haven't read DeWees' book. I hope they bring out a similar quality edition of Crowe's Susan Hopley (I spent three times as much as I did for Lily Dawson to get a facsimile edition of that first-ever detective novel, and it has no introduction or footnotes).

The story of Lily Dawson is punctuated by many tropes one would expect from an early "sensation" novel: family secrets, murderous plots, mystery, and atmosphere. Nevertheless, Crowe often presents even secondary characters with moral ambiguity and nuance. Lily is an odd heroine, being neither the most witty, intrepid, or beautiful girl in the narrative. Yet, the story upholds the value of her journey and commonplace decency. Crowe focuses our attention upon everyone but the rich and entitled, which I find pretty extraordinary. Characters who epitomize extreme poverty take center stage, which is rare in even my most beloved classics by George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte.

In all, I enjoyed this novel tremendously, and I will certainly search for other titles released by this stellar publisher.

[Philippa St · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another forgotten Victorian novel from the excellent Victorian Secrets publishing house. As the novel opens, Lilly Dawson is an unloved child slavey at an inn inhabited by a highly disreputable family. The novel follows her adventures in London to her final discovery of her true identity. There is a large cast of memorable characters and some horrible skulduggery along the way. Wonderful stuff.