Johnny Ludlow, Second Series

by Mrs. Henry Wood

A series of vignettes about life in the Victorian times in Great Britain. Excerpt from Second Many a true tale has been told of the disappearance of money in passing through the post. Sometimes the loss is never cleared up, but remains a mystery to the end. One of these losses happened to us, and the circumstances were so curious that they would have puzzled a bench of judges. It was a regular mystery, and could not be accounted for in any way.

579 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1880

About the author

Ellen Wood (née Price) was an English novelist, better known as "Mrs Henry Wood". She wrote over 30 novels, many of which (especially East Lynne), enjoyed remarkable popularity. Among the best known of her stories are Danesbury House, Oswald Cray, Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles, The Channings, Lord Oakburn's Daughters and The Shadow of Ashlydyat. For many years, she worked as the proprietor and editor of the Argosy.

Reviews

[Wreade1872]

So this is mostly good, kind of like Trollope but frankly superior, or a least a lot better than Barchester Towers, which i hated.

Written by a fictional author about incidents from his childhood. I didn’t read the 1st series and would probably recommend reading that first but i don’t think i missed too much.

I wouldn’t call this a collection of short stories exactly, more episodic storytelling. Most tales tend to break down into two chapters. With the second part often being some time after the first. In genre the episodes tend to mystery/crime or romance/tragedy. Lot of tragedy.. i found it quite depressing even though that probably wasn’t supposed to be the takeaway from many of the tales. I mean they don’t all end sadly. Some of the ones i found depressing were probably supposed to be uplifting in a victorian sort of way. I just have a real sensitive spot for petty evils.

The child version of the author Johnny Ludlow seems to be about 12 to 15. He’s small enough to tend to be overlooked while having a high enough social position to get access where he needs too.
The family situation was probably described more clearly in the volume i skipped.
He seems to be the son of a squire but the squire had children, remarried, had more kids, and the new wife was a widow who also has other kids.. if i remember right.

Also there’s around a 100 page novella of filler stuck in the middle. I did find the setup kind of funny for that one, adult author Ludlow takes a break from writing and goes on holiday to recover and an acquaintance gives him this huge manuscript to edit and rewrite into a proper story since he’s not doing anything.. it will only take a minute etc... and of course he lets himself be talked into it.

Anyway, way more Dickensian than Dickens. The mystery and crime elements were an interesting addition to the usual victorian melodrama.

Made available by the Merril Collection.

[Emily]

Some of these stories are perfect. However, it's a collection of short (by comparison) stories and not one of Mrs. Henry Wood's delightful novels where she picks up, like, six or eight plots and follows them through to the long, Victorian end. Some themes are revisited from time to time: Mrs. Todhetely loses an earring, and several stories later it turns up again in the hands of Lucy Bird (nee Ashton) whom we met several stories before Mrs. Todhetley lost the earring. But a lot of these stories can be summarized as, "I knew this guy and this thing happened but then it worked out." It's a litany of, "I knew this guy and then this thing happened but then it worked out." When I realized I was reading the second installment of a series of six (six!) story collections, I almost whelped. Then I ordered the first series. God only knows if I'll make it to number six. Mrs. Henry Wood wrote fifty-odd novels and so far I've read six, and I will continue to read them because they are damn good, but the Johnny Ludlow stories are going on the back burner.

Johnny Ludlow and his step-brother Tod attend some kind of mid-range Victorian boarding school but all the stories except Charles van Rheym happen during the holidays, when Johnny Ludlow is home to report on the townsfolk. The first story, Lost in the Post, is all about a five pound note mysteriously abstracted from a letter, and those of us who've read The Channings have been to this rodeo before. Because it's a short story collection, Mrs. Henry Wood can't keep us chomping and guessing for a thousand pages and it's pretty obvious that the only disreputable character, mentioned at the beginning of the story, is the culprit, but there's some interesting color about Victorian country life and we make acquaintance of a humble pharmacist and his brassy wife, who should stop. The next story, Hester Reed's Pills, introduces the concept of Household Pills: some kind of old-timey herbal medicament mixed up by whomever to treat minor troubles and fortify the family. Johnny isn't much involved in this story, but he attends the court session for the murder of the twins. Then there's some fallen women: women fall all the time in these stories, it's almost like they're people. A Story of Sin is rather a liberal departure for Mrs. Henry Wood. A lady's humble companion falls for the son of the lady, and several years later when she's still metaphorically self-flagellating and living in silent penitence her family comes at her like, "You had sex once several years ago. Maybe the rest of your life shouldn't be lived in punishment for one slip-up." It's a sad story, one that sort of works out for some of the characters, and the rest die. Then Mrs. Todhetley loses an earring, and that's a very big deal as well: they were her best jewelry.

In conclusion, read this, but if you're randomly picking a Mrs. Henry Wood go for The Channings first.