Fiction

Workers in the Dawn (1880) was the first published novel from the pen of George Gissing, one of the nineteenth century’s most original writers. It tells the story of Arthur Golding, a young boy who finds himself orphaned after his dissolute father dies in the squalor of a London slum. Through a series of fortunate encounters, he gains a good education and embarks upon a career as an artist, meeting the woman of his dreams, Helen Norman, along the way. As this is Gissing, however, it all goes horribly wrong when he rescues an alcoholic prostitute from the streets and tries to reform her, an episode that is largely autobiographical. ...

The Belton Estate (1865) is the story of a young woman, Clara Amedroz, who vacillates between two suitors: her bucolic but passionate cousin Will, who is heir to her father’s entailed farm, and Captain Aylmer, an urbane but unemotional MP who is tied to his rebarbative mother’s apron strings. The narrative reflects the Jane Austen novels read by Trollope during the 1860s, and they inform his portrayal of an impecunious unmarried woman. With no income of her own and an ailing father, marriage is Clara’s only means of survival, and she struggles with her impending dependence on the men who surround her. She dramatically articulates her frustration: “I think it would be well if all single women were strangled by the time they are thirty.” The sub-plot, involving Captain and Mrs Askerton, deals with society’s intolerance towards others marital misfortunes (an echo of Dr Wortle’s School) and it also serves to highlight both Clara’s humanity and the superficiality of one of her suitors. ...

My Trollope season continues with The Eustace Diamonds (1873), the third in the series of Palliser novels, and my least favourite thus far. The young and beautiful Lizzie Greystock traps the elderly and very wealthy Sir Florian Eustace into marriage, and within a year she is a widow in possession of a necklace worth £10,000 (around half a million quid): the Eustace diamonds. Although she is adamant that the jewels were a gift from her late husband, the Eustace family lawyer insists they were an heirloom and therefore not hers to keep. He embarks upon a quest to retrieve them from the clutches of the recalcitrant Lady Eustace, who boldly repels the intrusions of detectives and decamps to Scotland in order to protect her assets. ...

The second of Trollope’s Palliser novels, Phineas Finn, is also the first of his works with a predominant parliamentary theme. Although of relatively humble origins, the eponymous hero is elected MP for Loughshane through the support of his father’s old friend Lord Tulla. His father urges him to merely dabble in politics and focus on building a more lucrative legal career, but Finn is seduced by a life in Westminster and the circles in which he is now moving. ...

Referred to by G A Sala as “that remarkable and eminently disagreeable fiction”, Caroline Clive’s Paul Ferroll is a rare example of a unique novel. Published in 1855, it could be described as an early sensation novel with a strong element of psychological drama. Although the eponymous Ferroll is the embodiment of a successful Victorian gentleman – he is an eminent author, respected magistrate and friend of the local gentry – there is a cold-blooded killer lurking beneath the respectable exterior. The reader gradually learns that he murdered his first wife in order to marry his true love, Elinor, with whom he goes on to have a daughter. Although his neighbours gossip about the unseemly haste with which he re-marries, they cannot imagine that a man of his standing could have committed such a crime. Instead, a servant is charged then acquitted, and subsequently emigrates to Canada in order to escape the scandal. It is the return of this servant after eighteen years that prompts Ferroll to publicly confess his crime. Although sentenced to death at the conclusion of a dramatic trial, he manages to escape to a new life in Boston. ...

Marie Corelli’s The Sorrows of Satan (1895) is possibly the oddest novel I’ve ever read. And that’s saying something. The plot concerns Geoffrey Tempest, a struggling novelist, who unexpectedly inherits £5 million from a distant relative. This stroke of good fortune coincides with a visit from Prince Lucio Raminez, who the reader soon realises is the eponymous Satan. Tempest unwittingly makes a Faustian pact, and the life of which he could once only dream finally becomes a reality. He marries a much-celebrated society beauty, Lady Sybil Elton, and is able to buy them an idyllic home in the countryside. His new-found wealth also brings fame, thus ensuring an eager market for his novel. ...

John Sutherland described Ella Hepworth Dixon’s The Story of a Modern Woman as “the greatest unread novel of female struggle of the century”. Published in 1894, it is in Dixon’s own words “a somewhat gloomy study of the struggles of a girl alone in the world and earning her own living”. When her father dies, Mary Erle is left to fend for herself without guidance or money. She initially follows her dream of studying at the Central London School of Art, only to repeatedly fail entry to the Royal Academy. She instead tries her hand at hack writing, churning out magazine articles and penny novels. She is given little latitude to employ any artistic vision, as the publisher demands books that will be accepted by Mudie’s circulating library. Mary cannot understand why her fiction must be bowdlerised so as not to offend her readers, when the most sensational details of divorce cases are reported in the daily newspapers. Presumably, her readers are mainly women, whereas men would be more likely to read the lurid newspaper articles and disseminate a sanitised version deemed suitable for delicate feminine ears. ...

Having long been a firm advocate of Lady Audley’s Secret and defended it against charges of anti-feminism, I am delighted to discover that Mary Elizabeth Braddon has reworked some of its themes in her later novel, Thou Art the Man. Originally published in 1894, this work takes account of the prevailing discourses on heredity, degeneration and madness. This time, however, it is the male characters who are shown to be degenerate, and the female heroines turn detective in order to unmask the villain. ...

I think Trollope is just showing off. Apparently, he wrote Dr Wortle’s School (1881) in just three weeks. Admittedly, it’s a fairly slim volume, but even so, he’s still a pesky overachiever. The eponymous Doctor runs a successful private school and enjoys a good reputation in the fictional county of Broughtonshire. His life is severely disrupted, however, by the arrival of a new schoolmaster, Mr Peacocke, and his beautiful American wife. Although outwardly a perfectly respectable, yet enigmatic, couple, the appearance of a stranger at the school gates heralds the revelation that Mrs Peacocke is a bigamist. Now, I’m not spoiling anything here, as Trollope ruins this plot element himself in the opening pages. He wanted to avoid the plot-driven style of the sensation novel and instead focus on the psychological drama. ...

Sarah Grand’s Ideala is one of the early New Woman novels. The eponymous heroine grapples with the decision of whether to leave her domineering and adulterous husband for another man, or to become an elective singleton and reject the need for a normative relationship. The story is narrated by her friend Lord Dawne, who struggles to understand her need to question her role in society. He cannot understand why she would renounce the respectability and stability of marriage, but Ideala finds greater meaning in performing charitable works, writing poetry, and experiencing other cultures. ...