Fanny by Gaslight

by Michael Sadleir

Fanny by Gaslight

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Victorian, British Literature, Historical, Ebooks

385 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1940

Reviews

[Manray9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was inspired to read Fanny by Gaslight by a reference in Duff Cooper's memoirs Old Men Forget. Cooper was right. It is tale worth reading for poignantly reflecting attitudes of a time long past. The author, Michael Sadleir, was a noted art historian and bibliophile.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was advised me to read this book and that I would really enjoy it and I wasn't disappointed.



Although I had heard of the book I never knew what it was about or indeed what to expect. The story begins with a young gentleman who strikes up an unlikely friendship with an old lady who lives in a hotel, the young man is a publisher and offers to give her an advance of money if she provides him with the details of her long life. The story then separates into parts divuldging the lady's childhood and womanhood sandwiched inbetween her older age. The book it beautifully written and provides all sorts of twists that you would not expect, some elements are scandalous (without being obscene) and others are tragic.



This is a beautiful love story that I don't feel had diluted in time. The main characters are all highly likeable and the descriptions of the way they are depicted makes you feel as though you have known them for years!



I would advise this book to anyone who wants a meaty story that is as much about tragedy as it is about true love.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is almost the perfect read for a keen historian of Victorian England; it puts some well-fleshed bones on a very tricky subject: that of the widespread financial exploitation of mens' carnal appetites at the expense of exploiting young women's social & physical 'vulnerabilities'...but Michael Sadleir is so even-handed in his treatment of such a loaded topic...in that the blame falls in fair proportions on both sexes! (Not all the male & female 'victims' of the dark arts of exploitation were unwilling...as the beautiful but venal Lucy Beckett, whose selfish & vain behaviour that provokes the shattering climax of the novel, proves!).
Fanny Hooper is a character who comes through her personal & private ordeals with a determination that shows her to be worthy of heroine status rather than victim; she tells her part of her story in a series of memoirs, narrated to a sympathetic but opportunist 20c. publisher, who comes to appreciate her essential character when he meets her, by chance, in a small hotel near Paris in the early 30s...though her story is of some vintage...1860s & 70s... I enjoyed the time-travel aspect of the novel & the split narratives...that throw so much light on such a dark area of mid-Victorian London...where any number of Fannys...well...there were lots of young women who would have experienced something of what Fanny Hooper experiences in a colourful & dramatic life in the shadowy & sinister premises of the West End of the world's largest city...& for all I know...still experience today!
A very good read,& a love story too!, with vivid incidents aplenty...all well-bathed in the flickering gaslight of London's ill-lit & morally un-illuminated streets at the high-point of Victorian moral hypocrisy.

[Jill Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant, sensitive story by a renowned historian who takes the reader to the fringes of London's underworld in the 1870s. Fanny Hooper's father is unknown to her during her growing up, but, when they meet, they find each other charming and cherished friends and companions. Seeking work in London, Fanny's gentle nature nets her a job on the correct side of the reception desk of a brothel. She meets the love of her life but elects not to marry. Meanwhile, her best friend and a famous beauty named Lucy tries for a career on the stage and finds herself trapped amongst rogues, invisibility in the chorus line, nude scenes, and the casting couch. Fanny finally decides on marriage when a baby is due, but her love is tragically taken from her before they can be wed. She spends the rest of her life in a quiet French village where she and her lover had had an idyllic holiday. She tells her story to a journalist who finds it--and her--enchanting. He marvels at the ups and downs of women's lives in Victorian society. His telling of Fanny's story reminds us that we are only 150 years away from the days when women had to depend on men for protection, position in society, and basic survival.

While it may seem I've told a lot of the story here, I strongly recommend this book for its elegant, lovely language and the beautifully wrought characters. The scenes in London, northern England, and France are evocative. Readers will feel they are looking at picture postcards of places, characters, and a vanished age.

[Russell James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was surprised that I enjoyed this old best-seller so much: published in 1940 and set mainly in the 19th century, surely it would be dated? In a sense it is, but the 1940 overlay on Victorian Britain only increases its stamp of period. In a sense, too, it lulls you into thinking it a romantic rags-to-riches story but time and again it takes you down that dreamlike path before drawing you up sharp with something shocking. Sadleir drapes his sweetly romantic veil, then pulls it back to reveal violent and sordid times. The innocent yet worldy wise Fanny's life takes her from a rackety pub childhood into an adult life of kept women, an upmarket brothel, and (just about) respectable marriage. We read it both in her own and in her male friends' words.

[Virginia Rounding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad little novel, set mainly in 19th-century London.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really loved this book. Not sure what I was expecting but it was a delightful and touching book and I was really hoping things would turn out better for Fanny even though I already knew from the start how she ended up.

The change of narrator in the second section worked well once I realised that "I" was no longr Fanny!

Period detail throughout felt very real and gave a great insight into the structures and habits of the various layers of class and money and the hypocracy of the victorian prudery!

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite films as well.