Framley Parsonage – Anthony Trollope

When Elizabeth Gaskell declared: “I wish Trollope would go on writing Framley Parsonage for ever. I don’t see any reason why it should come to an end” she quite clearly didn’t have the pay day spoils of a visit to the book farm and an amazon binge sitting next to her, or a tempting looking pile of hitherto neglected Christmas gifts. I’ve ended up feeling a lot like I have been reading it forever.

On the whole this is no bad thing (although I did feel by the end that Trollope’s repeated mentions of lame Nemesis limping along was actually my Nemesis). The more Victoriana I read the more I enjoy it, every book gives a deeper insight into the period as language and landscape becomes increasingly familiar but it’s still a world that presents challenges to me. Books originally conceived to fill two or three volumes possibly after serialization, tend to be lengthy (‘Framley Parsonage’ is a relatively modest 560 pages) and if I have a niggle with Trollope it is that he does repeat himself. Repeatedly. Sometimes this works to great dramatic effect and I can see that it’s not an altogether bad thing in a complex, multi-stranded narrative spread over 600 or more pages to have the author remind one of what’s going on. Sometimes it’s quite annoying.

Having said that ‘Framley Parsonage’ is the Barchester Chronicle I’ve enjoyed most after ‘Barchester Towers’. It’s not as consciously funny (although the exchanges between Mrs Grantly and Mrs Proudie are just genius) but there’s a lot of good stuff going on in there and I wouldn’t wanted to have rushed through it even if I could have. Once upon a time I picked up books like this read a hundred pages or so and then got distracted and started something else, the shortest and most sensational books got finished and the result is I have dozens of part read great works of literature propping up the shelves. ‘Framley Parsonage’ is exactly the reason I try and be more disciplined – any effort expanded on it has been more than repaid (but heaven’s am I ready for a couple of novellas).

This one isn’t as plot driven (and I use that term loosely with reference to the Barchester books) as The Small House at Allington, or at least it doesn’t concentrate so specifically on one plot. Instead there are almost four books in one – there’s the story of Mark Robarts the unfortunate clergy man backed into signing bills for a dodgy politician who leaves him high and dry. There’s the story of Miss Dunstable the fabulously wealthy heiress to a cosmetics fortune – she’s middle aged and none too attractive – will she find a man to like her for herself or will she succumb to a fortune hunter? Then there’s Griselda Grantly (somehow the Grantly’s have lost 2 children since ‘Barchester Towers’ and Griselda has turned into a cold hearted beauty) and her adventures on the marriage market and finally there’s Lord Lufton; will he be beguiled by Griselda’s looks or will he succumb to the more subtle (but worthy) charms of Mark’s sister?

Almost a p.s. – I finished ‘Framley Parsonage’ last night, started writing about it straight away, and have since started reading something very different only to find myself missing Trollope. I’m really not ready to tackle ‘The Last Chronicle of Barset’ yet but I absolutely want to know what happens next - I have much more sympathy for Mrs Gaskell’s point of view than I did 24 hours ago. I should also say that Victorian Geek has also just written about Framley Parsonage – her response to it is altogether more educated than mine (she uses quotes and all sorts) and is undertaking a challenge to finish all of Trollope’s novels (which she’s doing at a pace that I’m frankly envious of) it’s possibly my favorite blog at the moment and on the off chance that anyone has a passion for the Victorian and doesn’t know it – well go and have a look.

And finally (I promise) my penguin edition features George Elgar Hicks 'Woman's Mission: Companion To Manhood' on the cover. It's an apt choice for 'Framley Parsonage' and is almost a novel in itself.

The Dead Secret – Wilkie Collins

Autumn isn’t my favourite time of year – I don’t mind winter but there’s something about the descent into it that I find dispiriting, but there are compensations. One of them is that autumn feels like the perfect season for Victoriana especially the more sensational kind and this September is being improved for me by Wilkie Collins.

There are a handful of his books I’ve been eyeing up for a read for a while and after ‘The Crimson Petal and The White’ I wanted to stay vaguely in period so went for ‘The Dead Secret’. It starts with a death bed scene followed by a dawn flight from a foreboding Cornish tower, and skips quickly to a dawn wedding some years later. In-between these events the only evidence of a Secret is hidden in said Cornish mansion...

When Rosamond Treverton marries Leonard Frankland it seems to be the most serendipitous of unions – childhood friends who fell in love, Leonards father has bought the Treverton family seat (that mysterious Cornish mansion again) Rosamond brings the money back to the family. Leonard Frankland has two important idiosyncrasies; he’s recently become blind and he’s very proud. His family were once landed gentry but more recently the money’s come from trade, something his father has taught him to be ever so slightly ashamed of. He believes in keeping a proper distance from the lower orders, in fact fundamentally believes in the idea of lower orders.

Rosamond is free from these particular prejudices, she’s a happy, loving, open hearted, and cheerful young woman devoted to her husband. If she has a fault it’s a quick and passionate temper. As the young couple journey south to take up their inheritance they are somewhat delayed by Rosamond producing a son and heir a month early. During her convalescence at a country inn she’s attended by a mysterious nurse who seems strangely agitated and warns her to avoid the Myrtle room at all costs when she reaches her new home.

All this warning does is determine Rosamond to find the room and reveal its secret – and here’s where the resemblance to ‘Cousin Henry’ comes in. The secret is contained in a hidden document which has the power to destroy Rosamond’s happiness and deprive her of her fortune in one fell swoop. She’s faced with the choice of telling her husband everything and hoping that love is enough to overcome his pride, or of destroying all evidence of a Secret no-one even suspects – something that would be made even simpler by Leonards blindness.

I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that it all ends happily – both Leonard and Rosamond are unhesitatingly honest but this is by no means all there is to the book. In good Collins style there are a host of other bit players vividly drawn and displaying a plethora of eccentricities, there’s also the hint of a ghost story that conjures both real suspense and comedy into a particularly fraught part of proceedings.

Its Collins touches of comedy and the grotesque that make him so dear to me as a writer, but I think it’s his social conscience that elevates him to classic status. If ‘The Dead Secret’ is anything it’s an attack on the idea of class superiority. Here fortune is an accident – not even one of birth, what matters is a good and true heart, the rest being down to education and opportunity. Collins plays with ideas of legitimacy and identity in several of his novels, and reading ‘The Dead Secret’ it struck me again that surely some of the things he suggests must have been shocking to the society he belonged to. I think there’s some pretty revolutionary socialism going on here – as well as a turning on the head of my pre-conceived notions of what a Victorian audience would have found acceptable. Anyway I’m blowing the trumpet for Wilkie Collins – I think he deserves far more attention – especially when it comes to the lesser known novels, as the nights draw in and the duvet calls you can’t do much better for thought provoking entertainment!

The Augustus Egg painting above (one of a triptych called 'Past and Present') is just because I like it and because I feel it's in the spirit of Collins, though Collins would never allow such injustice to pass unpunished!

Well this one sort of fits the bill

A week or two back Cornflower asked for pictures that summed up a book. It’s an idea that fascinated and stumped me in equal measure. Ask a question like that and my mind goes instantly blank which annoys me all the more because I have a degree in History of Art – theoretically my memory contains a vast picture library which I ought to be able to call on at a time like this to provide something dazzlingly appropriate.

In practice it doesn’t, or at least it does contain a vast picture library (even if many of the details are a little fuzzy now) many of which are so dazzlingly appropriate that they have already been used as cover art for the books I have in mind. Some are dazzlingly inappropriate and reflect books I expect no nice girl would admit reading but that’s what comes of a liberal arts education.

Still this is something I wanted to take part in because that degree contributed a lot towards my reading tastes and preferences. I have a love of British art only partly born out of a complete and humiliating lack of ability to learn another language; it’s a love that reaches its consummation with the Victorians (though isn’t by any means confined to them), specifically in problem paintings and conversation pieces. It’s a small step from sensational canvas to sensation novel and combining the two only heightens the appreciation of both for me.

So after due thought and consideration I’m presenting Robert Braithwaite Martineau’s ‘The Last Day In The Old Home’, it doesn’t in any way illustrate ‘The Law and The Lady’ which is the book that I was trying to match to a picture but does, I think, share a lot with the average Wilkie Collins novel in terms of subject and tone. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and that I don’t get done for infringing copyright rules... The original is in the Tate (British not Modern), it and its brethren are not very far from the Pre Raphaelite collection but they are somewhat less popular and therefore rather easier to get up close too and have a good look at.