Recent reading

A World of Girls: The Story of a School by L. T. Meade (1886). A classic early girls' school story—and it's kind of fascinating how much it did indeed feel like an intermediate stage between The Governess; Or, The Little Female Academy and e.g. Malory Towers. On the one hand it's very much an Edifying and Morally Improving Tale for Girls (and in a particularly Victorian way; it's really sentimental); on the other hand it has a clear narrative plot, the shape of which has developed into the familiar form of later school stories, and many of the classic girls' school trappings are there. The setting itself is similarly intermediate, which I suppose is an interesting window onto the development of girls' education generally. The story follows serious, proud new girl Hester and her rivalry with Annie, the mischievous but good-hearted darling of the school; a bad first impression gets worse when some person unknown starts playing mean-spirited pranks on various girls and Hester of course suspects Annie. The climax of the plot was too sentimental even for my love of the Victorians, and also racist (seriously, Meade has some cheek playing straight into stereotypes about dirty, wicked thieves and then having her main characters steal their dog with no compunction), but there was a lot of good stuff along the way, albeit extremely Victorian.

The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe (1791). This is one of the classic dramatic and exciting Gothic novels, and reading it really did make me feel like Catherine Morland. There's a wild forest; a spooky, sinister ruined abbey with mysterious rumours about its past; a moustache-twirling villain; daring escapes; lots and lots of dramatic scenery; contrived coincidences; etc. etc. I got an annotated edition from the library which explained the late eighteenth-century background of things like the lengthy descriptions of the landscape and the close relationship between nature and the characters' feelings (opinions of mountains underwent some change between the 1740s and the 1790s, it's evident), and Radcliffe's use of contemporary aesthetic theory and literary references, which was very helpful—I really enjoyed the nature descriptions especially, and it was interesting to have that background for them. It was also very interesting to see the development of the techniques of Gothic horror (building tension through descriptions of the sinister 'gloomy' surroundings; relieving tension by having an apparently scary thing turn out to be something innocuous, only for even scarier things to start happening later on)—which is still great fun! But there are also things in here more recognisable from the earlier eighteenth-century stuff I've read, like miraculous reunions between long-lost relatives and random poems interspersed with the text. Altogether a thoroughly enjoyable book, the effect of which was only slightly marred by occasionally recognising specific bits which Jane Austen was parodying in Northanger Abbey.

The Pastor's Fire-side by Jane Porter (1817). My search after old Jacobite novels is turning up lots of stuff lately! I found out about Jane Porter and her sister Anna Maria Porter from this article recently linked by oursin; reading it again now, it's frustratingly vague about whether or not Walter Scott actually took the specific subject matter of Waverley from anything by the Porters, and in fact this novel, the only Jacobite-related one I could find from either of them after a short search, was published later, but I thought it'd be a good one to read anyway.

With that explained—The Pastor's Fire-side actually has a rather different focus from both Waverley and later Jacobite classics; it's set in the 1720s and opens on the Northumbrian island of Lindisfarne, where the pastor of the title, a mild and saintly man, is visited by his great-nephew Louis de Montemar—whose father, a Spanish diplomat, left him to be brought up in England after the death of his mother. Louis, an earnest and passionate young man, is being seduced by the Bad Moral Influence of Duke Wharton, who is a known dodgy character and... a supporter of the deposed Stuarts! (This book is not very sympathetic to the Jacobites). Louis breaks with Duke Wharton, but remains hopelessly in love with him. But then Louis's dad, the mysterious Spanish diplomat, suddenly decides that it's time for Louis to follow him into a political career on the continent and summons him to Vienna. There follows a long and complicated time of diplomacy, intrigue and scheming at the court of Vienna, during which we meet Empress Elisabeth and her daughter Maria Theresa and learn about that vexed question of the Austrian Succession which eventually led to the war in which Britain was briefly interrupted by the '45. Of course the Austrian Succession and that of the Stuarts are not unrelated, and of course it turns out that Louis's dad's scheming enemies in Vienna include none other than Duke Wharton. I got a bit lost in all the intrigues, but I very much enjoyed the relationship between Louis and Wharton: constantly confronted by Wharton's unscrupulous, dishonourable and Jacobitical behaviour, Louis nevertheless remains absolutely smitten by him, while Wharton goes on charming and beguiling Louis; Louis keeps trying to make friends again and then pining wistfully and regretfully after deciding that Wharton is just too evil to tolerate. It's a very different kind of slashy-enemies dynamic to Flight of the Heron or indeed any of my other Jacobite/Whig pairings, and excellent fun. But, while Wharton may be a villain, Louis's dad isn't exactly an ideal hero either. After the Viennese scheming there follows a bizarre section in which, after being defeated by his enemies at the Spanish court, he defects to the Moors, becomes a Muslim and declares war on Spain, and Louis is forced to fight against him. Eventually everything is resolved in a suitably sentimental and improbable fashion.

It's a long and very ambitious book, especially for something written when historical novels were barely a thing yet, and although I did get slightly lost in the detail I admired and enjoyed the scope of it, as well as the slashiness. I also liked the Northumbrian scenery—Lindisfarne and that section of coast really are a lovely part of the world—and was slightly sad we didn't see more of it, although Porter's eventual conclusion is that it's far better to stay peacefully at home there and not do any scheming or politics at all. And the ending is very annoying, but never mind. Definitely worth reading; I'll have to check out more by Porter and her sister, and in the meantime I have a new Jacobite OTP to add to the list...