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Marigold
294 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1905
3 people want to read
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June 18, 2025
Ok.. i am rounding up quite a bit to get this to 4-stars but it is quite an interesting one and deserves a bit more profile.
One frustrating thing however, is that about 3/4’s of the way through i discovered this is in fact a sequel. It read well enough on its own but i think it would have added to it if i had read the Jewel ?Sowers first, but that is a guess.
Anyway, this is religious fantasy with some romance elements. Its pretty weird. Not least of which because of its religious underpinnings, its clearly trying to say things and is allegorical of something in places but i found it very ambiguous and hard to pin down what exactly the authors position is with regards to religion.
This is set in a hell-adjacent dimension. Where the inhabitants don’t realise their land is run by the devil incarnate (insert your own political joke here). Tey worship the Great Serpent but in a standard christian style religion. Catholic in fact, i surmise by the High Priest having to be celibate.
The whole thing felt quite satirical at times but as mentioned above hard to know if that was intentional. All of the characters are rather terrible from a modern perspective IMO.
Oh and it has that common writing issue, of it being hard to tell which character is speaking.
The romance elements are quite problematic in places. In fact the best character is probably the satan one, who by the way is also happily married.
Also Tiny Tim is in it. I mean his name is Tim and he bares all the characteristics of the dickens character, so he certainly seems borrowed.
One final element of note, is that the author only wrote 3 books, all in this sequence. She was a schoolmistress at St. Anne's National School in Lancaster England. She took her own life on september 5th, 1905, to promote her 3rd book, claiming ‘I have died to give God's gift to the world with as little stumbling block as possible’.
I think this one is odd enough that it deserves to be remembered and I’m planning on reading the other two books in the trilogy.
Made available by the Merril Collection.
One frustrating thing however, is that about 3/4’s of the way through i discovered this is in fact a sequel. It read well enough on its own but i think it would have added to it if i had read the Jewel ?Sowers first, but that is a guess.
Anyway, this is religious fantasy with some romance elements. Its pretty weird. Not least of which because of its religious underpinnings, its clearly trying to say things and is allegorical of something in places but i found it very ambiguous and hard to pin down what exactly the authors position is with regards to religion.
This is set in a hell-adjacent dimension. Where the inhabitants don’t realise their land is run by the devil incarnate (insert your own political joke here). Tey worship the Great Serpent but in a standard christian style religion. Catholic in fact, i surmise by the High Priest having to be celibate.
The whole thing felt quite satirical at times but as mentioned above hard to know if that was intentional. All of the characters are rather terrible from a modern perspective IMO.
Oh and it has that common writing issue, of it being hard to tell which character is speaking.
The romance elements are quite problematic in places. In fact the best character is probably the satan one, who by the way is also happily married.
Also Tiny Tim is in it. I mean his name is Tim and he bares all the characteristics of the dickens character, so he certainly seems borrowed.
One final element of note, is that the author only wrote 3 books, all in this sequence. She was a schoolmistress at St. Anne's National School in Lancaster England. She took her own life on september 5th, 1905, to promote her 3rd book, claiming ‘I have died to give God's gift to the world with as little stumbling block as possible’.
I think this one is odd enough that it deserves to be remembered and I’m planning on reading the other two books in the trilogy.
Made available by the Merril Collection.
Displaying 1 of 1 review