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Heartsease; Or, the Brother's Wife
Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901), was an English novelist, known for her huge output. She was devoted to the Church of England, and much influenced by John Keble, a near neighbour and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Her novels reflected the values and concerns of Anglo-Catholicism. She began writing in 1848, and published during her long life about 100 works, chiefly novels. Her first commercial success, The Heir of Redclyffe (1854), provided the funding to enable the schooner Southern Cross to be put into service on behalf of George Selwyn. Similar charitable works were done with the profits from later novels. She was also editor, for nearly forty years, of a magazine for young ladies, the Monthly Packet. Among the best known of her works are Heartsease; or, The Brother's Wife (1854), The Daisy Chain; or, Aspirations (1856), A History of Christian Names (1863, revised 1884), A Book of Golden Deeds (1864), The Dove in the Eagle's Nest (1866), Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands (1873) and Hannah More (1888).
712 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1854
About the author
Charlotte Mary Yonge
828 books79 followersCharlotte Mary Yonge was an English novelist, known for her huge output, now mostly out of print.
She began writing in 1848, and published during her long life about 160 works, chiefly novels. Her first commercial success, The Heir of Redclyffe (1853), provided the funding to enable the schooner Southern Cross to be put into service on behalf of George Selwyn. Similar charitable works were done with the profits from later novels. Yonge was also a founder and editor for forty years of The Monthly Packet, a magazine (founded in 1851) with a varied readership, but targeted at British Anglican girls (in later years it was addressed to a somewhat wider readership).
Among the best known of her works are The Heir of Redclyffe, Heartsease, and The Daisy Chain. A Book of Golden Deeds is a collection of true stories of courage and self-sacrifice. She also wrote Cameos from English History, Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands and Hannah More. Her History of Christian Names was described as "the first serious attempt at tackling the subject" and as the standard work on names in the preface to the first edition of Withycombe's The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 1944.
Her personal example and influence on her god-daughter, Alice Mary Coleridge, played a formative role in Coleridge's zeal for women's education and thus, indirectly, led to the foundation of Abbots Bromley School for Girls.
After her death, her friend, assistant and collaborator, Christabel Coleridge, published the biographical Charlotte Mary Yonge: her Life and Letters (1903).
-Wikipedia
The Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship, a website with lots of information.
See Charlotte's character page for books about her.
She began writing in 1848, and published during her long life about 160 works, chiefly novels. Her first commercial success, The Heir of Redclyffe (1853), provided the funding to enable the schooner Southern Cross to be put into service on behalf of George Selwyn. Similar charitable works were done with the profits from later novels. Yonge was also a founder and editor for forty years of The Monthly Packet, a magazine (founded in 1851) with a varied readership, but targeted at British Anglican girls (in later years it was addressed to a somewhat wider readership).
Among the best known of her works are The Heir of Redclyffe, Heartsease, and The Daisy Chain. A Book of Golden Deeds is a collection of true stories of courage and self-sacrifice. She also wrote Cameos from English History, Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands and Hannah More. Her History of Christian Names was described as "the first serious attempt at tackling the subject" and as the standard work on names in the preface to the first edition of Withycombe's The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 1944.
Her personal example and influence on her god-daughter, Alice Mary Coleridge, played a formative role in Coleridge's zeal for women's education and thus, indirectly, led to the foundation of Abbots Bromley School for Girls.
After her death, her friend, assistant and collaborator, Christabel Coleridge, published the biographical Charlotte Mary Yonge: her Life and Letters (1903).
-Wikipedia
The Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship, a website with lots of information.
See Charlotte's character page for books about her.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 19, 2021
This is tied with The Heir of Redclyffe as a favorite Charlotte Mary Yonge now. I loved the long amount of time we got to spend with these characters and see their struggles and growth as characters. It did have a few didactic bits but I did myself the favor of skimming these. I loved how the ending few chapters tied up everything with a nice little bow.
Want to Read
October 14, 2025I'm a simple reader, I was told this was a reworking of Mansfield Park and I added to my list!
January 31, 2021
If you can't stand Christian redemption or the glorification of self-denial maybe you don't want to spend any time with Charlotte M. Yonge. There's a lot of that. The n-word is also sprinkled in here in a way I haven't noticed in her other works so be aware that's going to happen.
Having read most of her work this is a minor one but it's pretty interesting in addressing:
--living with chronic and acute illness
--poorly considered marriages and how they can be redeemed
--awkward class dynamics created by marrying down
--differences in character: Yonge is always attentive to how people have their own paths based on personality and therefore very different struggles
--the appropriate role of influence in women's friendships
--disability (there's an intellectually disabled minor character and one who's deaf and mute)
If you want the full Yonge experience starting with The Clever Woman of the Family or The Daisy Chain would be preferable, but there's a lot to be interested in here culturally, plus some entertaining Bad Man Drama. She's a very thoughtful novelist, and her characters' dilemmas are always presented very fairly and legitimately, so you can see why they make the choices they do.
I have no idea who told the earlier reviewer that this was like Pride and Prejudice! That's a very weird idea. The plot trajectory is kicked off by an impetuous young man marrying a sixteen-year-old country girl, who gradually becomes a moral influence on everyone around her. Nothing could be less like Austen. I guess you could say Theodora, the sister-in-law, is motivated by pride and learns better but she's hardly Mr. Darcy.
Having read most of her work this is a minor one but it's pretty interesting in addressing:
--living with chronic and acute illness
--poorly considered marriages and how they can be redeemed
--awkward class dynamics created by marrying down
--differences in character: Yonge is always attentive to how people have their own paths based on personality and therefore very different struggles
--the appropriate role of influence in women's friendships
--disability (there's an intellectually disabled minor character and one who's deaf and mute)
If you want the full Yonge experience starting with The Clever Woman of the Family or The Daisy Chain would be preferable, but there's a lot to be interested in here culturally, plus some entertaining Bad Man Drama. She's a very thoughtful novelist, and her characters' dilemmas are always presented very fairly and legitimately, so you can see why they make the choices they do.
I have no idea who told the earlier reviewer that this was like Pride and Prejudice! That's a very weird idea. The plot trajectory is kicked off by an impetuous young man marrying a sixteen-year-old country girl, who gradually becomes a moral influence on everyone around her. Nothing could be less like Austen. I guess you could say Theodora, the sister-in-law, is motivated by pride and learns better but she's hardly Mr. Darcy.
December 28, 2008
Never enough domestic fiction, say I.
May 11, 2026
When Arthur, youngest son of Lord Martindale, marries an unaristocratic provincial teenage bride, his sister Theodora is outraged and jealous, and his older brother John is convinced it will be a disaster. Will shy, gentle Violet win the family round? And meanwhile Theodora, brought up in a home that has every material advantage but no love, struggles to balance her desire to do the right thing and be loved against her passionate hatred of being told what to do…
This book has some reminiscences of Jane Austen - especially in Violet, unassuming girl brought into a country house built with the profits of the slave trade - but also something of the passion of a Brontë novel in Theodora, driven by feelings she often does not fully understand and sometimes does not, sometimes cannot control. In the background lies the fascinating and underplayed story of Lady Martindale, West Indian heiress, brought up to be the empty epitome of accomplishment, and her ghastly controlling aunt Mrs Nesbit, who still holds sway over the family. While this background means that some characters bandy the ‘n’ word in a way typical of the time and others try to do the best they can with what in the novel is an evil inheritance, for Yonge this ‘best’ is more good estate management and missionary work than socioeconomic justice for the formerly enslaved. One wonders what a Jean Rhys style response to this element of the plot would look like.
Back in England, the novel’s interest is clearly on the two very different young women at its centre. Theodora, naturally demonstrating what we would now call avoidant attachment after her childhood, is also naturally jealous of the way Violet has taken over the one person with whom she truly had an affectionate relationship. Anyone who has been gripped by strong feelings must find her sympathetic even when we can see her march headlong into disaster. Violet is not quite such a passive agent as Fanny Price, but surely provokes much of the same irritation. However like Fanny she is a study in the effects of ill health on the constrained life of a girl of the period, and unlike her manages to grow in practical and emotional resourcefulness through the novel. Today her very early marriage seems outrageous, and Arthur, embodiment of the selfish spoilt upper class young man of the day, all whiskers and disregard for anyone’s happiness but his own, is hard to like.
Percy Fotheringham, quick-witted and sharp-tongued, has never convinced me as a romantic hero, but is clearly supposed to be the best counterpart to Theodora - mercifully although her refusal to defer to him breaks their relationship, her ‘taming’ happens while he is offstage and he clearly appreciates all her strength of character. Lord St Erme, who starts as an effete lover of German philosophy and Italian art, and ends much improved in Yonge’s eyes by becoming a socially responsible landlord, is in some ways a more interesting character, and, successor to Disraeli’s leading men, brings in a note of ‘Condition of England’ to the book.
But really the thread through the book is one of how young women can, may and should respond to the situations in which they find themselves, with limited control even if they are heiresses, and few options if they are financially straitened. Theodora and Violet are just two of the women who face choices with limited support at their disposal, especially from the men who are supposed to be responsible for them, and while Yonge commends spiritual strength and support from God, she also shows how essential networks of female support are between peers and between generations.
This book has some reminiscences of Jane Austen - especially in Violet, unassuming girl brought into a country house built with the profits of the slave trade - but also something of the passion of a Brontë novel in Theodora, driven by feelings she often does not fully understand and sometimes does not, sometimes cannot control. In the background lies the fascinating and underplayed story of Lady Martindale, West Indian heiress, brought up to be the empty epitome of accomplishment, and her ghastly controlling aunt Mrs Nesbit, who still holds sway over the family. While this background means that some characters bandy the ‘n’ word in a way typical of the time and others try to do the best they can with what in the novel is an evil inheritance, for Yonge this ‘best’ is more good estate management and missionary work than socioeconomic justice for the formerly enslaved. One wonders what a Jean Rhys style response to this element of the plot would look like.
Back in England, the novel’s interest is clearly on the two very different young women at its centre. Theodora, naturally demonstrating what we would now call avoidant attachment after her childhood, is also naturally jealous of the way Violet has taken over the one person with whom she truly had an affectionate relationship. Anyone who has been gripped by strong feelings must find her sympathetic even when we can see her march headlong into disaster. Violet is not quite such a passive agent as Fanny Price, but surely provokes much of the same irritation. However like Fanny she is a study in the effects of ill health on the constrained life of a girl of the period, and unlike her manages to grow in practical and emotional resourcefulness through the novel. Today her very early marriage seems outrageous, and Arthur, embodiment of the selfish spoilt upper class young man of the day, all whiskers and disregard for anyone’s happiness but his own, is hard to like.
Percy Fotheringham, quick-witted and sharp-tongued, has never convinced me as a romantic hero, but is clearly supposed to be the best counterpart to Theodora - mercifully although her refusal to defer to him breaks their relationship, her ‘taming’ happens while he is offstage and he clearly appreciates all her strength of character. Lord St Erme, who starts as an effete lover of German philosophy and Italian art, and ends much improved in Yonge’s eyes by becoming a socially responsible landlord, is in some ways a more interesting character, and, successor to Disraeli’s leading men, brings in a note of ‘Condition of England’ to the book.
But really the thread through the book is one of how young women can, may and should respond to the situations in which they find themselves, with limited control even if they are heiresses, and few options if they are financially straitened. Theodora and Violet are just two of the women who face choices with limited support at their disposal, especially from the men who are supposed to be responsible for them, and while Yonge commends spiritual strength and support from God, she also shows how essential networks of female support are between peers and between generations.
June 16, 2019
This is touted as a Pride and Prejudice retelling. And, yes, Theodora takes an unfounded and intense dislike to Arthur's new wife. But the writing never even comes close to Austen. And none of the characters ever become real or likable. Except for John Martindale. And Violet is milquetoast in comparison to Elizabeth Bennett. It was a favorite Victorian literary convention to have heroines who suffer from brain fever or who swoon at the slightest provocation. But I much prefer women made of stronger mettle. Theodora has all the strength that is lacking in Violet, but none of the heart. So even though Theodora learns to like her sister-in-law, her continued pride, jealousy, and foolish stubbornness make her thoroughly disagreeable and tiresome throughout the rest of the book. Her chastening and improvement come too late for the reader to even care.
The best thing about the book is that Christianity is gently woven into it without giving all the dumb, easy answers that are offered in modern Christian fiction. Unfortunately, the "n" word is occasionally used to signify servitude.
The best thing about the book is that Christianity is gently woven into it without giving all the dumb, easy answers that are offered in modern Christian fiction. Unfortunately, the "n" word is occasionally used to signify servitude.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 7, 2010
I just finished reading Heartsease by Charlotte M. Yonge. I had only heard this 19th century author referred to once in some book, and the reference spoke rather slightingly of her. I was surprised to find this book quite well-written and interesting. I looked it up on Amazon to see if it’s been reprinted (I read it online, which is hard on the eyes but easy on the pocketbook!). It has been reprinted, though according to Amazon you would pay a shocking price if you wanted to get it.
Anyway, there was only one review of the book. Part of it says, “For me the real heroine of the book, however, is Arthur's sister, Theodora, whose wilfulness, passion, and benevolence make her a far more interesting character than the cloyingly sweet, submissive, and tediously pious Violet…Many readers will find the heavy-handed religious tone of the book irritating. It is also littered with racist epithets.”
Ack. Why do people admire the stubborn and wilful characters who mess up royally and spend most of the book unhappy, rather than admiring the truly noble? Do they really think it’s more admirable to do take the easy road and do what you feel like doing (Theodora) than to stay true to your beliefs and be a good wife to a rather selfish husband, doing it with cheerfulness and humility? Theodora is an interesting character, I’m not denying it, but I thought the book did an excellent job of showing why you should not be proud and selfish and that you should avoid being like her (until the end, of course, when she repents). I do know why the average modern reader will like Theodora best: it’s out of fashion to be unselfish and humble and sweet—if you’re a woman.
About the rest...well, yes, if one isn't a Christian I suppose one might think it was too religious. That’s a hazard one faces in reading old books. As a Christian I wish it were more religious. And racist epithets? Well, not many. Certainly no more than any other book of the time that mentions foreign places. Wives and Daughters is much worse in that regard.
So for Christian women who want to read a good old (long) book with a good role model, Heartsease would be a good pick.
Anyway, there was only one review of the book. Part of it says, “For me the real heroine of the book, however, is Arthur's sister, Theodora, whose wilfulness, passion, and benevolence make her a far more interesting character than the cloyingly sweet, submissive, and tediously pious Violet…Many readers will find the heavy-handed religious tone of the book irritating. It is also littered with racist epithets.”
Ack. Why do people admire the stubborn and wilful characters who mess up royally and spend most of the book unhappy, rather than admiring the truly noble? Do they really think it’s more admirable to do take the easy road and do what you feel like doing (Theodora) than to stay true to your beliefs and be a good wife to a rather selfish husband, doing it with cheerfulness and humility? Theodora is an interesting character, I’m not denying it, but I thought the book did an excellent job of showing why you should not be proud and selfish and that you should avoid being like her (until the end, of course, when she repents). I do know why the average modern reader will like Theodora best: it’s out of fashion to be unselfish and humble and sweet—if you’re a woman.
About the rest...well, yes, if one isn't a Christian I suppose one might think it was too religious. That’s a hazard one faces in reading old books. As a Christian I wish it were more religious. And racist epithets? Well, not many. Certainly no more than any other book of the time that mentions foreign places. Wives and Daughters is much worse in that regard.
So for Christian women who want to read a good old (long) book with a good role model, Heartsease would be a good pick.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 11, 2022
read fo BA thesis
well… I wouldn’t have made it though this if I wasn’t reading it for a specific purpose. It was extremely slow and tedious to read at times, i found myself repeating things for my chapter summaries several times in a row bc neither the plot nor the characters would move forward or develop much. it’s an outdated work for sure and it didn’t have many redeeming qualities for me expect it being very relevant to my thesis topic. Theodora was honestly pretty great though, the ending was extremely underwhelming but she had the most dynamic character arc at least. Violet and Theodora’s relationship was great too, i enjoyed seeing it develop.
well… I wouldn’t have made it though this if I wasn’t reading it for a specific purpose. It was extremely slow and tedious to read at times, i found myself repeating things for my chapter summaries several times in a row bc neither the plot nor the characters would move forward or develop much. it’s an outdated work for sure and it didn’t have many redeeming qualities for me expect it being very relevant to my thesis topic. Theodora was honestly pretty great though, the ending was extremely underwhelming but she had the most dynamic character arc at least. Violet and Theodora’s relationship was great too, i enjoyed seeing it develop.
November 26, 2019
I read one of Yonge's other books, Countess Kate, which was delightful. This, unfortunately, was not. It's far too long and much too prosy about religion. That said, it's interesting as a specimen of middle-class Victorian literature, complete with melodrama (two catastrophes and three near-death scenes!). The first half is slow going, but it picks up thereafter. If you haven't read Yonge, I don't think this is a good place to start. Read Countess Kate instead.
February 21, 2024
Such a sweet read. The main character Violet is such a gentle and humble woman. I love to read about how characters like her face being disliked.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews