Mord Em'ly: Enriched edition. A Tale of Poverty, Love, and Resilience in Victorian London

by William Pett Ridge

"Mord Em'ly" by W. Pett Ridge. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Victorian

225 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1898

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mord Em'ly is fierce and funny through poverty and misfortune, and this little history of her life stands in very enjoyable contrast to heavier, more moral works of reform from the turn of that century. And she will insist you pronounce her name correctly, which I particularly love.

From London Peculiar and Other Non-fiction by Michael Moorcock:

Its author W Pett Ridge was the most famous literary Londoner of his day. He walked everywhere. He knew the city from suburbs to centre. He knew everyone, an energetic social reformer, he was a good friend of HG Wells, JM Barrie, WS Gilbert, Jerome K Jerome, E Nesbit and many contributers to the Pall Mall Gazette, The Idler, Westminster Gazette, journals of what we'd today call the moderate left. All testified to his experience and talent. 'There is nobody else in London,' said JM Barrie, 'with his unique literary ear.' (52-53)

Like many of his contemporaries from poor backgrounds, he educated himself at the Birkbeck Institute's evening classes. (53)

Betty Balfour, who played Mord Em'ly in Me and My Girl, not dressed like this, but I am sure Mord would have approved[/caption]

Mord Em'ly was his best loved book. A silent film. From IMDB:

A Cockney thief reforms, her ex-convict father kills her mother, and she weds a boxer.

I suppose there could be worse summaries.

As Moorcock suggests, Pett Ridge is able to capture some of the joys of working class life, the freedoms it offers to women for possibly the first time:

All the members of the Gilliken Gang possessed the privilege which the London girl demands--that of having their evenings for their very own. Some were engaged in a large mineral water factory in Albany Road; two walked over Blackfriars Bridge to the City every morning; the remainder did nothing of a definite character (loc 226).

And after having read a great number of moral literature and studies written by reformers (see Maud Pember Reeves, Margaret Harkness, Mary Higgs, and I will include W. Somerset Maugham in this dour list of tales of the working class's feckless improvidence, dull capacity for suffering and dire poverty):

Pandora Buildings, despite its bare passages and blank, asphalted yard and drafty balconies, all suggesting that it was a place where people were sent for some infraction of the law, was, nevertheless, for its inhabitants sufficiently cheerful, and there were very few of them who were not happy. To understand this fact it was necessary to become an inhabitant in Pandora, and not merely to come down on a hurried visit, as lady philanthropists did, and sniff, and look sympathetic, and tell each other that it was all quite too dreadful. Nothing privately amused Pandora more than the visits of these people, and Mord Em'ly gained much applause by her very faithful imitation of one of these visitors.

"Oh, the poor, dear creatures!" Mord Em'ly would look at the diverted women on the landing with half-closed eyes and a glance of condescension. "How do you do, my poor women! What do your poor husbands do for a living, pray? Dear, dear! what dreadful occupations, to be sure! I'd never really heard of them before. And the poor, dear children--I do so hope you look after them. Our country's future, you must remembers, lies in their hands, and -- This is my daughter, Lady Ella. She, too, is going to be so interested in the poor. In fact, I may tell you that she is going to play the zither at a concert near here some evening.

"Ah, Mord Em'ly!" The women would laugh and wipe their eyes with aprons exhaustedly. "You can take the toffs off to a T." (loc 239)

Speaking geographically, there are some brilliant summaries of how place and class intersect in here, like this description of New Kent Rd:

At the Paragon end of New Kent Road she stopped to take breath. There is a decorum about New Kent Road, with its tree-bordered pavements and calm dwelling-houses, that constitutes a silent reproach to its noisy, restless, elder relative, and even on this Saturday night it was not without repose. Middle-aged couples, out for the purpose of buying forage for the home, and accompanied by the newest baby in order that it might thus early study economy, were going east to Old Kent Road, or went to the Elephant, as their fancy or their traditions dictated (loc 71).

But above all come the marvelously satirical descriptions of the three sisters living on their own at 18 Lucella Rd, Peckham Rye where Mord is taken on as a servant at the age of 'firteen'. Pronunciation corrected

No. 18 was precisely like No. 17, and like No. 19, and like every other number in Lucella Road; the lace-curtained bow-windows, the ventian blinds half-way down, the row of yellow pots on the edge, the glimpse of oval mirrors and draped pianofortes within (loc 196).

‘This, dears,’ said the youngest sister, ‘ is the little girl who has come after the place. She looks willing, and my idea is that we might take her for a month, at any rate. Her mother is a good worker.’
‘I expect Letty is right,’ said one of the elder sisters. ‘ What is your name, my girl ?’
‘Mord Em’ly.’
Name interpreted by the youngest sister.
‘Oh, you must really learn to pronounce distinctly. You should say Maud, and then wait for a moment, and then say Em-ily.’
"All very well,’ said Mord Em’ly, ‘ if you’ve got plenty of time.’
"Are you a hard worker, my girl ?"
"Fairish, miss. I ain’t afraid of it, anyway."
"I think we shall decide to call you Laura if you stop with us."
"Waffor?" demanded Mord Em'ly.
"We always call our maids Laura," explained the eldest of the ladies complacently. "It's a tradition in the family. And my youngest sister there, Miss Letitia, will look after you for the most part. My other sisters are engaged in -- er -- literature; I myself; if I may say so without too much confidence, am responsible for"--here the eldest sister looked in a self-deprecatory manner at the toe of her slippers--"art." (loc 312)

***

"My sister Fairlie," went on the eldest lady in a lecturing style, and pointing with her forefinger, "writes under the pen name of 'George Willoughby' and has gained several prizes, some of them ammounting to as much as one guinea. My sister Katherine pursues a different branch. her specialite, to use a foreign expression, is the subject of epitaphs--queer epitaphs, ancient epitaphs, pathetic epitaphs, singular epitaphs, amusing--"

"Speaking about epitaphs," interrupted Mord Em'ly, "how much do I get a year for playing in this piece?"

And the banter -- the banter is marvellous. At no point is Mord bested in banter.

Read more here

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 1898 novel is an example of the 'slum lit' that was popular at the end of the 19th century in England. Mord Em'ly (Maud Emily) is a thirteen year old child of the streets, running with a girl gang, when she is picked up for pilfering pastries and sent to a boarding school for wayward girls. She leaves the school and strikes out on her own.

The girls in this book are more mischievous than wicked. Their gang fights are more hair-pulling and fingernail scratching than anything more serious – they don't carry weapons. They would be called street urchins in an earlier time.

Mord Em'ly is headstrong and sassy with a comeback for every critical remark, but a hard worker and has a strong moral sense even if she doesn't want to admit it. We see her grow up by a few years and have to deal with the attention of men.

This is a novel that would be more titillating than shocking in its day. The middle class readers would feel that Mord Em'ly and her friends are still good Englishwomen who just need a few breaks in life to straighten out. Some of them get those breaks. There's no really bad example of a ghastly fate. Even prostitution is only obliquely referred to, and could be ignored by a reader if she so chose.

It's an interesting period piece of its time, but it doesn't read so well today. We know the reality could be so much worse, and the lives of the Victorian poor much harsher.

[Harry Rutherford · Rating 3 out of 5]

More obscure London Victoriana being brought to light by Lee Jackson. This one is a lively novel about a working class girl I can only describe as 'feisty' (sorry) who starts off as a teenage gang member and ends up… well, let's not give spoilers.

The main thing is that this is genuinely readable and entertaining.

The phonetic spelling out of accents is a bit of a mixed blessing though: generally it adds colour in a good way, although sometimes it did trip me up, with words like 'esitite' and 'runnygide', where I had to take a second run at them to work out what they meant.

Most curious is the spelling of the heroine's name: Mord Em'ly. This is supposed to be a phonetic rendering of how she pronounces Maud Emily; but I'm not quite sure what it's supposed to indicate. With my accent Mord and Maud are perfect homophones, so either there's a vowel-change there I don't know about or it's pure eye-dialect, meant to give a general impression of uncouth speech without referring to a real change in pronunciation: in which case you'd think he could have picked a different name for his heroine.

I assume, incidentally, that it's not supposed to indicate an actual 'r' sound, although I suppose I could be wrong about that.

Anyway, this is a short, fun novel that's worth reading .

[David Hambling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ridge is not Dickens, whatever anyone says, but spins an entertaining tale around the life of a London teenager -- Mord is member of a girl gang with an alcoholic mother and absent father, but it's a cheerful story for all that, though life does not progress smoothly, starting when Mord is arrested for shoplifting.

Pett handles his characters well and conveys the threats and challenges to young women (in short a lot of bad men out there) , plus Mord's unconquerable zest for life and disdain for religion, literature and respectable life. It's all done with tremendous lightness and gentle humour, and a wonderful grasp of the colourful turns of phrase of Victorian London.

[Nissa Tolton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maud Emily is a rather smarty-pants teen-age cockney girl facing the problems of her class and era. This book is pleasant read because it is rather a white-washing of working class London of the 19th century. Still, the author was known to walk the streets of London practically as a vocation, and this familiarity shines through.

Since some people have reported difficulty finding this out-of-copyright book, I have uploaded it here: https://earlywithdrawal.net/victoriana

This is corrected OCR text from pdf scan; if you appreciate the work involved, 'like' this post so others may see it.

[Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one must be REALLY obscure, as it has no recommendations, only a few GoodReaders have read it, and there ain't even no cover pic. Oh well. i liked it, though I'm not a fan of Victorian lit, really. I guess it's because "Mord Em'ly" is kind of like the underside, the harsh reality, the ugly stepsister of most Vic-lit. It's a hard-headed, unsentimental (as Moorcock says in his cover blurb) account of a girl joining a vicious gang of street tough girls in an urban working class London slum who gets sent away to a reformatory house, escapes, and tries to make a living despite enormous obstacles: dead mother, coarse language, and the attentions of some unsavory males. There's an undercurrent of playfulness here, as Pett Ridge seems to delight in overturning literary and moral applecarts - Mord Em'ly herslef is no moral barometer and often appears to hide, rather than purposefully avoid, her destructive tendencies. Again, liked it - and especially loved the over-literal Cockney translations. Worth a read if you can find it (apparently it's rare).

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book. Often in London dialect spellings - makes you think about it for a second or so. Not a vast storyline but enjoyable all the same.

[J.A. Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

My mum is a Bermondsey girl and the place names and the energy of the characters make me think of her and her sisters