Fiction

True crime isn’t usually my cup of tea, but I found myself completely transfixed by Elizabeth Jenkins’s Harriet (1934) last year. Based on the infamous Penge murder trial of 1877, the novel recounts the short life and pitiful death of Harriet Staunton, a middle-class woman with what we would now call ‘learning difficulties’. Although she struggled to read and write, Harriet took great pride in her appearance and enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle with a comfortable income. Her loving mother did everything to make Harriet’s life normal, never imagining her daughter would become the victim of a merciless fortune-hunter. ...

Eliza Lynn Linton is an unlikely heroine for me, given she is best known for her anti-feminist articles ‘The Girl of the Period’ for the Saturday Review. While her journalism alerted readers to the dangers of the New Woman in all her guises, Linton’s novels – quite literally – tell a different story. First published in 1867, Sowing the Wind features an emancipated woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to Linton herself. Like her creator, Jane Osborn works as a journalist on a daily newspaper, managing to thrive in a masculine environment and to earn the respect of her male colleagues. Linton was actually the first woman journalist in England to earn a salary, and was described by Charles Dickens as “good for anything, and thoroughly reliable”.1 Jane works to support her mother, an endearing but unworldly woman, and her recently discovered cousin, Isola. ...

I’ve always been slightly chary of Will Warbuton (1905), having been warned that it features a happy ending. Anyone familiar with Gissing’s novels will know that he is relentlessly bleak, and anything else would be plain wrong. Much to my relief, misery still abounds in this story, and Gissing’s characteristic obsession with money, sex, and class is evident throughout. Will Warburton is an essentially cheery soul whose financial security is destroyed by the recklessness of an unreliable friend. Having only a few hundred pounds in the bank and a widowed mother and a sister to support, the middle-class Warburton resolves to buy a grocery business in South London. Although resigned to this twist of fate, he struggles with the “sickening weariness of routine” and the humiliation of serving behind a counter. Emasculated by his ill-fortune and class relegation, he is easy prey to a dishonest landlady, who exploits his meagre and hard-won income. Indeed, Warburton epitomises Gissing’s ubiquitous trope, that of the man whose iniquitous social position is determined by his financial situation. ...

First published in 1887, Gissing intended Thyrza to “contain the very spirit of London working-class life”. He spent long hours researching the novel in south London, watching and listening to the inhabitants as they went about their business. His story tells of Walter Egremont, an Oxford-trained idealist who gives lectures on literature to workers, some of them from his father’s Lambeth factory. Thyrza Trent, a young hat-trimmer, meets and falls in love with him, forsaking Gilbert Grail, an intelligent working man who Egremont has put in charge of his library. ...

One of my less onerous resolutions for 2010 was to read all the Palliser novels, and my work is now done. In contrast with the inherent conservatism of its predecessor, The Duke’s Children (1880) is all about the necessity of change. The novel opens with the death of the Duchess of Omnium (formerly Lady Glencora Palliser), thereby signalling that nothing will ever be the same again. The Duke’s grief is compounded by the behaviour of his children, who all privilege inclination over duty, seeking happiness rather than strategic advantage. His daughter, Lady Mary, becomes engaged to a penniless aspiring MP; son and heir, Lord Silverbridge, is sent down from Oxford for painting the Dean’s house red and then falls in love with the American granddaughter of a dock-worker; and younger son Gerald makes a dent in the considerable family fortune through his fondness for cards and horses. ...

Jerome K. Jerome is famous, of course, for writing one of the funniest books in the English language: Three Men in a Boat. What is less well known is that he desperately tried to reinvent himself as a serious author. Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters was published anonymously in 1892, Jerome hoping that the novella would be judged on its own merits, rather than compared unfavourably with his comic tales of irascible terriers and tinned pineapple. Unfortunately for him, his publisher Arrowsmith was nervous about the story’s frank portrayal of adultery and it was never made available for general sale during the author’s lifetime. ...

As I’m forever complaining about Trollope’s obsession with pure heroines, it’s only fair to commend him for using John Caldigate (1879) to question a man’s right to a sexual past. Caldigate is the archetypal Victorian ne’er do well. Graduating from Cambridge with eye-watering debts, he is obliged to try his luck in the Australian goldfields. On the long voyage to the Antipodes he amuses himself with Euphemia Smith, a feisty widow who is no better than she ought to be. She explains her attraction to him thus: ...

Banking scandals, corporate greed, and social irresponsibility – who says Trollope isn’t relevant? The Way We Live Now (1875) is perhaps his darkest novel and is markedly different from the rest of his oeuvre. This probably explains why it is often sidelined and not given the attention it deserves. I’ve written many times before that readers tended to punish Trollope for experimenting with different styles, but his willingness to try new ideas is what makes him so interesting as a writer. Often referred to as the most “Dickensian” of Trollope’s novels, The Way We Live Now is a scathing attack on the dwindling morality of the mid-Victorian period and the “commercial profligacy of the age”. The glittering cast of characters is headed by Augustus Melmotte, an entrepreneur of dubious provenance who seeks social advantage through his immense wealth. There are marked similarities with Ferdinand Lopez, anti-hero of The Prime Minister. Melmotte angles to pair his timorous daughter Marie with an aristocrat who can confer respectability and lineage upon his house. ...

We all know Trollope was no feminist, but Is He Popenjoy? (1878) is the only novel in which he openly attacks the nascent women’s rights movement. He revels in imaginary meetings in Marylebone, organised by the Rights of Women Institute for the Relief of the Disabilities of Females (known more succinctly and disparagingly as ‘Disabilities’). Presiding over this august group are the unsubtly-named Lady Selina Protest, Baroness Bannman, who has a “considerable moustache”, Dr Olivia Q. Fleabody, and Ju Mildmay. Mildmay is aunt to Lord George Germain, whose unhappy young wife Mary attends the meetings, prompted by curiosity and dissatisfaction. There she sees: ...

I must confess to a degree of scepticism on receipt of a proposal to publish The Angel of the Revolution, George Chetwynd Griffith’s 1893 tale of air warfare. Sci-fi generally resides in my Room 101 and has no place on the papal bookshelves. Imagine my surprise at finding myself completely gripped by a fantastical story in which an intrepid group of Socialists, Anarchists, and Nihilists defeat Capitalism with their superior knowledge of dirigibles (my new favourite word). Led by a crippled, brilliant Russian Jew and his daughter, Natasha, The Brotherhood of Freedom establishes a ‘pax aeronautica’ over the world, thanks to the expertise of scientist Richard Arnold. Arnold falls in love with Natasha (the eponymous Angel), and Griffith builds a utopian vision of Socialism and romance. ...