Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

She was a fine and handsome girl—not handsomer than some others, possibly—but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment.
Narrator - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Author Thomas Hardy was born June 2, 1840 in a small hamlet called Higher Bockhampton, which is located in the southwestern English county of Dorset. His childhood was filled with a wealth of the deep influences of culture and locale. 

From their two-story brick and thatch cottage, Thomas Hardy naturally absorbed a love for literature from his mother, who although she had only served as a maidservant and cook, loved to read Latin poets and translated French romances.  Hardy had a deep love of poetry and even as a renowned author of novels, primarily thought of himself as a poet.

Thomas Hardy’s childhood very much revolved around literature, music, the local church and life in a rustic rural setting – all of which translated into the body of work that the author became renowned for and for which he was much loved by his devoted readers. His father, a self-employed master mason and building contractor, had descended from an old Dorset family tracing back to the Isle of Jersey in the1400s and was an avid violin player who passed along his love of music to young Hardy.

The irresistible, universal, automatic tendency to find sweet pleasure somewhere, which pervades all life, from the meanest to the highest, had at length mastered Tess.
Narrator - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Years ago when I was finally able to put aside the college textbooks and night times taken up with study and homework, I set out on a personal journey to read through the classics… All the ones I felt that I had missed while locked into a “school system plan” that unfortunately was a fairly Austen-free zone. Now that my reading choices were my own I delved into the Brontë sisters, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, of course – Jane Austen and… Thomas Hardy.

I didn’t lose my heart to Hardy the way I did to John Keats but the writing style of Thomas Hardy totally captured my mind. His word-crafting is sublime and the wise reader will keep a dictionary handy if your love of words is equal to your love of story.

I long to visit England…  to one day have the chance to travel through Wessex…  to wander the sweet smelling farm where Bathsheba Everdene walked with Gabriel Oak among the pastures and flocks, where Tess Durbeyfield lived her early simple cottage life and the town of Casterbridge, where a mayor’s past catches up with him….

The problem is… there is actually no such place.

A fictitious area that featured as a setting in all of Hardy’s major novels, Wessex was named after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that historically did exist in southwest England prior to the Norman Conquest and it was the area that Hardy himself called home. Using this imagined world gave Hardy a feeling of freedom that enabled him to  translate his social concerns into his fictional works whether it related to class inequality issues, the ruination of many rural communities by new industry and technologies or the troubling gender issues that affected all levels of Hardy’s world.

As Tess grew older, and began to see how matters stood, she felt quite a Malthusian towards her mother for thoughtlessly giving her so many little sisters and brothers, when it was such a trouble to nurse and provide for them. Her mother’s intelligence was that of a happy child: Joan Durbeyfield was simply an additional one, and that not the eldest, to her own long family of waiters on Providence.
Narrator - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy wrote six novels that were an achievement of great British literature - Far From The Madding Crowd (1874), The Return Of The Native (1878), The Mayor Of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Tess Of The d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude The Obscure (1895).

These Wessex novels are outstanding works that continue to give us a wealth of unforgettable characters -  one of which is most definitely Tess Durbeyfield.  

“Don’t you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d’Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d’Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?”
Parson Tringham - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

The next read for The Jane Austen Tea Society in our current reading plan is Tess of the d’Urbervilles - the twelfth published novel by Hardy. It was originally released in the illustrated British newspaper The Graphic July through December of 1891 but in a censored version. A three volume edition then released later that year with the subtitle A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented. It was a controversial novel for late Victorian Britain with a lower rural class focus and interwoven treatments of religion and sexuality. But its vivid depiction of a woman’s struggle within the limits of society and her little sphere are deep and emotionally memorable.

Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience.
Narrator - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

There is much to discuss in our current read, Tess of the d’Urbervilles  — it’s a good one!  We will meet to discuss this much-loved work on January 25, 2025  over an early Spring Book Lunch.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Elinor was to be the comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs.

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility was first published on October 30th, 1811 by British publisher Thomas Egerton, Military Library of Whitehall, London.  The year 1811was an important one in history  — the first of the time period officially recognized as the Regency Era. 

George, Prince of Wales became prince regent in February of 1811 due to the perceived insanity of his father King George III. Even though the Regency Era has been commonly understood to have extended between the years 1795 and 1837, the regency period officially began with the Prince of Wales regency start in 1811 and it lasted until 1820 at the death of King George III.

The Regency Era is notably recognized for culture and refinement, for music and theatre, for art and a wonderful wealth of literature. But it was also a time rampant with poverty and the growth of slums in populated areas. Unemployment was at a crisis level during the Regency Era and the slums became notorious for violence, gambling, prostitution and other vices.  It was an era with wars, industrial strikes and riots.

Yet despite all of the world events raging around her,  Jane Austen wrote of the quiet daily life of young women trying to find their own place of happiness and security in their small worlds and within the strict parameters imposed on them by society. 

Jane Austen left a skillfully-wrought portrait for us of the retired day to day life for a landed gentry family presented through deeply memorable storylines.  

We don’t hear much about the wars that must have impacted Austen’s life, other than the excitement of Elizabeth Bennet's sisters at nearby soldier camps - but the events surrounding  Jane Austen and her family certainly trickled down to influence plots, characters and the background of her novels.

As you settle in to rereading - or maybe reading for the first time - Sense and Sensibility, open your mind to the big picture surrounding Elinor and Marianne’s story.  What differences did their personalties represent?  How had the Romantic Era of literature (1800 - 1840) affected the creation of their personalities?  

It’s interesting to note that when Sense and Sensibility was published:

Jane Austen was 36

William Wordsworth was 41

Lord Byron was 23

John Keats was 16

There is much in this Jane Austen work that plays on Romantic ideas of the day in skillful character development and the well-crafted conversations that take place.  

Who is more representative of the Romantic Movement — Elinor or Marianne… and which is you?

There is much to discuss in Jane Austen’s first-published novel, Sense and Sensibility — it’s a good one!  We will meet to discuss this much-loved work on January 25, 2025  over an early Winter Book Breakfast.

On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse.

Sense and Sensibility

North And South by Elizabeth Gaskell

If I saved one blow, one cruel, angry action that might otherwise have been committed, I did a woman's work.

Margaret Hale

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was born in September of 1810 in Chelsea, London, the daughter of a Scottish Unitarian minister and the youngest of eight children.

At 11 years old Elizabeth was sent for a typical “young ladies” education in the arts, classics and decorum and encouraged by her aunts and by her father to read, study and to develop in her writing. At 22 years old, she married a Unitarian minister, William Gaskell, in Knutsford and they went to settle in Manchester where he served as the minister Cross Street Unitarian Chapel.  

The tragic loss of children, places lived; neighbors and friends who were loved and experienced… all became fuel for Elizabeth’s imagination as the years passed.  She began with a diary, wrote poems with her husband under the title -  Sketches Among The Poor - which were published in a magazine and there followed other small written works which developed her style.

It was after the Gaskells traveled to the continent that influences produced new ideas and her first work of fiction was published, Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras under the name “Cotton Mather Mills”.  

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her major literary works in the second half of the century from a villa at 84 Plymouth Grove in Manchester, England.  Her social circle grew to include such writers as Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, John Ruskin and the American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

North and South, Wives and Daughters and Cranford are the most well-known and beloved of the works by Elizabeth Gaskell. Her novels were a window into the life of Victorian society and offered a view into varied social classes. 

A good example is the “social novel”, North and South, which follows protagonist Margaret Hale and the effect of the Industrial Revolution on mill workers and mill owners in the fictional town of Milton in the North of England.

In Milton ... I shall find a busy life, if not a happy one.

Mr. Hale

Margaret’s world is drastically altered from rural southern England to the harsh environments of industrial Milton.  Set near the end of the Industrial Revolution it presents a contrast of the values of rural southern England and the industrial north. 

Historically England’s social structure had been dominated by the landed aristocracy but the Industrial Revolution brought new prominence to wealthy industrialists. There was also the rising opportunities for improved living conditions by new employments possibilities for the working class — but it also came with long working hours, poor working conditions and insufficient wages.

Fancy living in the middle of factories, and factory people! 

Mrs. Hale

Strong, proud and spirited, Margaret Hale is a heroine worth getting to know. She is “not beautiful at all” but is characterized as having a dignity that was striking. The book would have been entitled, Margaret Hale except for the insistence by Charles Dickens that North and South was the better title. Her relationship with the serious and ambitious John Thornton is a compelling one with each challenging and affecting the other for good.

Be always the same John Thornton ... endeavouring to do right, and making great blunders; and then trying to be brave in setting to afresh.

John Thornton

North and South was originally published in the magazine, Household Words in serial form between the years 1854 to 1855 and was subsequently released in book form in 1855. Gaskell does a skillful job in this work of weaving together historical influences, emotional subplots and strong character growth.

There is much to discuss in the lengthy but enjoyable North and South.  Start reading now!  We will meet to discuss this much-loved work of Elizabeth Gaskell on October 19, 2024 over an early Autumn Book Breakfast. 

Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness. 

John Thornton

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

 

If you love disappearing into a great story - you will truly love each & every book written by Australian writer, Kate Morton.

Author of seven novels - all of which have been New York Times bestsellers - Kate’s books have been #1 bestsellers around the world and have been published in 42 countries and in 34 languages.  She is known as one of Australia’s biggest publishing exports.

What has made her such a beloved writer amongst her fans?  Her depth of storyline transcends countries and languages.  She has a gift for transporting us into another time and another life, often weaving seamlessly between characters and time periods. She takes us on a journey that lends itself to colorful mysteries and satisfying surprises, and is a master at creating a pleasing atmospheric experience.

Born in a small town in South Australia, Kate’s family moved several times until they settled on Tamborine Mountain, which became a place that allowed Kate Morton’s imagination to flourish. She credits her journey as a writer to the love that she had as a child for the joys of reading and the happiness that she experienced losing herself in the stories that she read.

Published in July of 2013, The Secret Keeper is my favorite Kate Morton novel, with The Forgotten Garden a close second. The book begins with 16-year-old Laurel Nicolson hidden in a treehouse reading.  She witnesses a murder that changes her life and challenges the core of who she is and how she views her beloved mother.  As an adult, she begins a search for the truth and what she discovers will only be found as she delves into the past.

When asked to describe The Secret Keeper in one sentence, Kate Morton said:

“Shifting between the 1930s, the 1960s and present, The Secret Keeper is a spellbinding story of mysteries and secrets, theatre and thievery, murder and enduring love.”

The Jane Austen Tea Society’s Summer Book choice is a wonderful read  - The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton with a Book Breakfast & Discussion to take place on Saturday the 6th of July at 10am.

Kate Morton Novels include:

The House at Riverton / The Shifting Fog (2006) 

The Forgotten Garden (2008) 

The Distant Hours (2010) 

The Secret Keeper (2012) 

The Lake House (2015) 

The Clockmaker's Daughter (2018) 

Homecoming (2023)

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

“It was evident from the general tone of the whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state of mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that occasionally broke out.”

Arthur Clennam - Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was an incredible creative force during his lifetime.  He wrote 15 novels, 5 novellas and hundreds of short stories and non-fictional articles. He gave lectures, was a prolific letter writer and edited a weekly journal for almost 20 years.  Because of personal experiences in his early life, Dickens was also a dedicated campaigner for children’s rights, education, and social reforms — including his stance as an outspoken proponent for copyright law and the protection of intellectual property.  

But above all Charles Dickens was most celebrated and beloved for his pioneering of the narrative serial novel. Not only did he capture the imagination of millions during his writing career, but he also had an intense gift for a deep portrayal of a time period and a way of life in the world in which he lived.

I love to read Charles Dickens.  He’s not exactly an easy read - his books are usually very lengthy works and there is a different rhythm to reading them…  You don’t finish a Dickens novel in a night or even a few nights and you need a fully engaged mind.  They are made to settle into - to invest in with your time and attention — but they are so worth it with their colorful characters and lasting storylines. 

Charles Dickens often drew from his own life experiences to weave his deeply memorable storylines. Two novels that are great examples of this are the beloved David Copperfield and the quirky, atmospheric Bleak House. Our current read, Little Dorrit is no exception in its depiction of poverty, social injustice and the idiosyncrasies of the Victorian British legal system - all of which were close to Dickens’ heart.

Home had never been a word of such sweetness to me as after I was ensnared into the Marshalsea prison.

Little Dorrit - Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

Born Charles John Huffam Dickens at No. 1 Mile End Terrace, Landport, Portsmouth, England in February of 1812, Dickens was the 2nd of 8 children born to John and Elizabeth Barrow Dickens.  John Dickens was ultimately incapable of supporting his large family,  which forced Charles to begin work at 12 years old at Warren’s Blacking Factory after his father’s poor head for finances led to his imprisonment for debt in the Marshalsea Prison. These early formative years became a taboo topic for discussion with Charles Dickens but found wonderfully creative expression in each of his literary works and most particularly in Little Dorrit.

A torn jacket is soon mended, but hard words bruise the heart's core.

Little Dorrit - Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

The Marshalsea Prison was located in the London borough of Southwark on the south bank of the River Thames near London Bridge.  The prison housed primarily people convicted of some form of subversion; pirates, sailors who had mutinied and also debtors unable to pay their debts.

It was possible during the Victorian period in England for people to be jailed for nonpayment of debts and it could be for a long and indefinite period of time, depending on whether they were able to raise enough money to pay off their debt.  It was not unusual for family members - whether wives or children - to stay in the prison with the person responsible for the debt, which was most likely the “breadwinner” husband or father. 

These family members - often children - endeavored to find employment and any contributing money or earned income would not only pay off the outstanding debt but also provide for necessary food.  Prisoners who could pay would have the advantage of a bar, restaurant, shop and could sometimes be able leave the prison during the day.

If your debt and lack of income was severe enough, you could be crowded into a small room with many other prisoners and the result often was disease or starvation for many imprisoned people. A British Parliamentary Committee in 1729 found that during a period of three months, 300 prisoners had died of starvation and a smaller number from hot weather during the summer months.

The Marshalsea prison operated from approximately 1329 until 1842 when most of it was demolished.  There is still a length of wall remaining with a small plaque commemorating the prison and the work of Charles Dickens.

The prison darkness had a lasting hold upon them both, and was the pervading influence in their new lives.

Narrator - Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

Our current read - Little Dorrit - is Charles Dickens’ 11th novel, written just after Bleak House and originally published by London’s Bradbury & Evans as a monthly serial from 1855 through 1857 in 19 consecutive installments. It also released as a book in 1857 and received immediate critical acclaim. Little Dorrit’s themes were recognizable to readers of the day with social and economic issues that were familiar but countless readers down through the years have continued to appreciate their hallmarks of love and redemption.  Little Dorrit is truly one of Dickens’ at his best.

Our main character in this quarter’s read is Amy Dorrit or “Little Dorrit”, daughter of William Dorrit, inmate of Marshalsea prison. Little Dorrit  is born in and spends her growing up years in the prison, venturing out with her siblings to earn meagre wages during the day. Working as a seamstress for the severe invalid, Mrs. Clennam, Amy falls under the notice of the son, Arthur Clennam and a rich storyline ensues…

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.

Little Dorrit - Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

We will all be able to share our thoughts and ideas as we meet for a Spring Book Breakfast at the end of April to discuss Charles Dickens’ work, Little Dorrit. There is plenty of time to read this one but you may want to get started soon - it is worth the effort!