I thank Christina Boyd for sending me an ARC copy of this book that I freely chose to review and for offering me to the opportunity to join the blog tour for its launch.

I have read and reviewed one of the Austen based collections Christina Boyd has edited in the past (Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen’s Rakes & Gentlemen Rogues, check that review here), and when she told me what she was working on, I did not hesitate. I have met many talented writers through her collection and the books she has edited and have to warn any readers that you are likely to end up with a long list of authors added to your favourites if you keep on reading.

I am sure no Austen reader would think that, but some people not so well versed in her work sometimes think that her novels are only about silly girls of the Regency period, normally of good families, flirting and forever plotting to marry a rich and attractive man, with nothing of interest in their heads other than attending parties and fashionable balls, and not a hint of independent thought or opinion. Nothing further from the truth. The title of the collection highlights the status of Jane Austen’s female characters. There are nice women, some cruel ones, vain, prejudiced, stubborn, naïve, impulsive, but they are not the playthings of men. They work hard to prove they are “rational creatures” and they try, within the options open to them at the time, to take charge of their lives and their own destinies.

In the foreword, Devoney Looser writes:

In its pages, the best of today’s Austen-inspired authors use their significant creative powers to explore new angles of love and loss, captivity and emancipation. These stories reimagine both, beloved female characters, like Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet, and loathed ones, such as Persuasion’s Penelope Clay. The results are comical, disturbing, and moving.

I could not have said it better. While when I reviewed Dangerous to Know I said anybody could enjoy the stories but connoisseurs of Austen would likely delight in them, in this case, I think this is a book for Austen fans, and those particularly interested in feminism and in the early supporters of the education of women. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is mentioned in the foreword and also makes its appearance in some of the stories, and it clearly informs the readings the authors make of the characters and the novels they pay homage to. In a matter of fact, the book could also have been called A Vindication of Austen’s Women.

While some of the contributions are short stories in their own right, although centred on one of Austen’s female characters, some are vignettes closely linked to one of her novels, showing the background to some events in the story, or exploring the reasons for the decisions taken by some of the female characters that might have surprised us when we have read the novels, particularly so, perhaps, due to our modern sensibilities. Each story is introduced by a quotation from the novel in question that helps us get into the right frame of mind.

The catalogue of stories and characters is long and inclusive. We have: “Self-Composed” (by Christina Morland) about Elinor Dashwood, “Every Past Affliction” (by Nicole Clarkston) about Marianne Dashwood, “Happiness in Marriage” (by Amy D’Orazio) about Elizabeth Bennet (one of the most famous and well-known heroines in the Austen canon and I think most readers will easily identify with the character and her plight), “Charlotte’s Comfort” (by Joana Starnes) about Charlotte Lucas (I will confess I’d always wondered about Charlotte’s decision to marry the horrendous Mr. Collins. I enjoyed this version of events and it makes perfect sense), “Knightley Discourses” (by Anngela Schroeder) about Emma Woodhouse (it was a pleasure to catch up with Emma again, a happily married Emma, here), “The Simple Things” (by J. Marie Croft) about Hetty Bates (perhaps because I’ve never been married, I am always drawn towards characters who remain single, and I found this episode particularly touching), “In Good Hands” (by Caitlin Williams) about Harriet Smith (it was good to see Harriet get her own voice and not only be Emma’s plaything), “The Meaning of Wife” (by Brooke West) about Fanny Price (I liked this rendering of Fanny Price as she gets enlightened thanks to Wollstonecraft’s Vindication), “What Strange Creatures” (by Jenetta James) about Mary Crawford (which introduces a touch of mystery), “An Unnatural Beginning” (by Elizabeth Adams) about Anne Elliot (another one I found particularly touching), “Where the Sky Touches the Sea” (by Karalynne Mackrory) about Sophia Croft (this is not a character I was very familiar with but I loved her relationship with her husband, her self-sufficiency, and the realistic depiction of grief), “The Art of Pleasing” (by Lona Manning) about Penelope Clay (as a lover of books about cons and conmen, I could not help but enjoy this fun story full of twists and fantastically deceitful characters), “Louisa by the Sea” (by Beau North) about Louisa Musgrove, “The Strength of Their Attachment” (by Sophia Rose) about Catherine Morland, “A Nominal Mistress” (by Karen M. Cox) about Eleanor Tilney (a fun story with its sad moments, and a good example of the type of situations women could find themselves in at the time), and “The Edification of Lady Susan” (by Jessie Lewis) about Lady Susan Vernon (an epistolary story that I thoroughly enjoyed, and another one recommended to people who love deceit and con games).

The writing styles vary between the stories, but there are no actualisations or reinventions. The stories are all set within the Regency period, and the authors observe the mores and customs of the period, seamlessly weaving their vignettes and stories that would be perfectly at eas within the pages of the Austen novels they are inspired by. The characters might push the boundaries of gender and social classes but never by behaving in anachronistic ways, and if anything, reading this book will make us more aware of what life was like for women of different ages and different social situations in that historical period. What we get are close insights into the thoughts and feelings of these women, many of whom were only talked about but never given their own voices in the original novels. It is amazing how well the selection works, as sometimes we can read about the same characters from different perspectives (the protagonist in one of the stories might be a secondary character in another one, and the heroine in one of the stories might be a villain in the next), but they all fit together and help create a multifaceted portrait of these women and of what it meant to be a woman of a certain class in the Regency period.

I have said before that I feel this collection will suit better readers who are familiar with Austen’s universe, but, to be fair, I have enjoyed both, the stories centred on novels I knew quite well, and those based on characters I was not very familiar with, so I would not discourage people who enjoy Regency period novels and have read some Austen, but are not experts, from reading this book. By the time I finished the book, I admired, even more, the genius of Austen and had decided to become better acquainted with all of her novels. Oh, and of course, determined also to keep sharing the collections and books by this talented group of writers.

In summary, I recommend this book to anybody who loves Austen and has always felt curious about her female characters, protagonists and supporting players alike, and wished to have a private conversation with them, or at least be privy to the thoughts they kept under wraps. If you want to know who these women are and to see what it must have been like to try to be a woman and a rational creature with your own ideas in such historical era, I recommend this collection. As a bonus, you’ll discover a selection of great authors, and you’ll feel compelled to go back and read all of Austen’s novels. You’ve got nothing to lose other than a bit (or a lot) of sleep!

This dual biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley utterly enthralled me. Both were talented, groundbreaking, independent thinking women, they each had drama and difficulties in their lives worthy of a Brontë novel, and between them they knew intimately some of the most interesting people involved with Romantic literature and radical political thought from the French Revolution through to the mid-Victorian years.  

 

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born into a poor family with a very difficult, sometimes violent father, but Wollstonecraft was at least as spirited as he was and she struggled to surmount the boundaries gender and poverty put on her life in every way she could, eventually becoming a leading progressive thinker and the author of several influential books, including A Vindication of the Rights of Women. She loved passionately but refused the traditional roles women were expected to embrace at the time, so she married the political philosopher William Godwin late in life and only reluctantly. Wollstonecraft died days after giving birth to the daughter named for her, so it was through her extensive writings that Mary Godwin Shelley came to esteem, cherish, and love her mother.

 

While still a teenager Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein, a social commentary many consider the first science fiction novel, while holed up in Switzerland with a crowd that included Lord Byron. Like her parents she rejected social conventions about love, life, and marriage and at sixteen she scandalized her more staid contemporaries by running away with the already married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, though that particular rebellion she came to regret because it hurt so many people. Mary longed for and looked up to her mother, using her mother’s writings as guideposts for her own life, and that reverence was shared by her husband, her stepsister, Lord Byron, and many of Mary’s other peers.

 

Romantic Outlaws is written in a back and forth chronology, with chapters about the two women alternating, so the section about Wollstonecraft’s early life is followed by one about her daughter at a similar age. I thought this might be confusing, especially since they’re both named Mary, but their circumstances were different enough that it was usually simple to keep track of who I was reading about, and structuring the book that way makes it easy to compare the lives of the women, which adds even more interest to their stories.

 

The book is well researched and documented with notes, but far from being a dry recitation of facts I found it very compelling. Many of the chapters even end in what might almost be called cliffhangers, a technique that definitely kept me highly engaged.

 

Before reading this biography both Marys were more symbols to me than women with families, lovers, personal trials and private doubts, but Charlotte Gordon illuminates the hearts and minds of her subjects and succeeds at bringing the two women and the era they lived in to life. William Godwin, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron are among the people who are also well rendered, and many other fascinating people spend time on the book’s pages, including Coleridge, Keats, and John and Abigail Adams.

 

Saying it’s engrossing is almost an understatement--I don’t remember ever finding a biography so hard to put down. I read an advanced review ebook copy of this book supplied by the publisher through NetGalley, but I’ve already preordered my own copy hardback edition of Romantic Outlaws.

I love Frankenstein. It’s such a polyvalent book. But the interpretation that I like the most is that it represents the failure of the 19th-century domestic ideal. It’s a middle-class ideal, and it goes as follows: a woman gets married, gives up all power to her husband, stays at home, and raises children. In exchange, her husband supports and protects her. Well, Mary Shelley, along with many other people, saw how severely flawed this ideal was, but only Shelley, in her brilliance, came up with Frankenstein.

 

In Shelley’s novel, a middle-class dude, Victor Frankenstein, promises to marry his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth Lavenza. However, before getting hitched, he goes off to Ingolstadt to receive an education befitting his gender and social status. And oh, the fun to be had. Fascinating classes, engrossing experiments, good-looking professors. All in all, after four or so years of this fun, Victor really does not want to go home to fulfill his role of a husband and protector. But Elizabeth is aging, and since a woman’s shelf-life is so short at that time, Victor’s dad writes him a strong-worded letter, saying that Victor ought to come home or there’ll be consequences.

 

That’s when Victor makes his monster.

 

Then he makes the monster angry.

 

Then the monster goes to Victor’s hometown of Geneva and kills Elizabeth, so Victor does not have to marry anymore. A celebration, I mean an oath of a life-long vengeance while staying single ensues.

 

So, yes, between men not wanting to get married and women not knowing what their future spouses might bring home from the outside world (STDs? Crippling debts? Monsters?), the 19th-century domestic ideal was of questionable value to men and deadly for women.

 

What do you like about Frankenstein?

 

I've come to learn that classics are classics for a reason, although I almost doubted this at first because it did take a while to get going. Once it did though, I couldn't get through the pages fast enough.

Everyone knows the story of Frankenstein, so no point in me treading over old ground. Tell me though, did anyone else think that Frankenstein was the name of the monster!? Be honest! I did. I felt pretty stupid that that was in-fact Victor’s surname. I don’t know how that alluded me for so long! As I clearly knew little about Frankenstein before I read this book, I feel I got more from it though.

This book is jammed packed with keen observations about humanity, so would have been a great novel to talk about if my book group had actually met! Unfortunately the meet was cancelled though, so if anyone wants to discuss it here, I’d be more than willing. The main point in this regard was the monster’s rejection by humanity. Regardless of his subsequent response, it was hard not to feel a level of pity for him. It’s this type of alternate character which really helps to lift a novel. It can be pretty boring if a protagonist is ALL good/bad.

There was also a great level of suspense which I really enjoyed.

The reason I've marked this down is because I did get frustrated at times, for example not being told the intricacies of the construction of the monster. This was conveniently rationalised when Frankenstein said he didn't want anyone to be able to replicate his mistakes by bringing life to a similar creature. The same goes for the appearance of the monster. Although I do appreciate ambiguity in a novel, I think it may have helped to have had more of an idea of what the monster actually looked like.

There was also the problem of repetition. If I hear the word ‘countenance’ again, it won’t be too soon!

Regardless though, this was a good read and brought some great ideas to the fore in consideration of the period it was written.

Ματίλντα - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,Ι... Δεν μπορώ να πω πως η Ματίλντα με συνεπήρε τόσο όσο ο Φρανκενστάιν.

Η ιστορία είχε αρκετό λυρισμό, άλλωστε η μελωδική γλώσσα και το γότθικο, σκοτεινιασμένο ύφος ήταν, κυρίως, ο λόγος που μου άρεσε αυτή η νουβέλα. Παράλληλα, η υπόθεση ήταν αρκετά τολμηρή και, τουλάχιστον για τα δεδομένα εκείνης της εποχής, προκλητική, ωστόσο με άφησε σχετικά αδιάφορη, ενώ ήταν, σε πολλά σημεία, προβλέψιμη, με τάσεις επανάληψης(γλωσσικών εκφράσεων, αλλά και σκέψεων της ηρωίδας), οι οποίες με κούραζαν. Οι χαρακτήρες, και ιδιαίτερα η μικρή Ματίλντα, στερούνταν ηθικής εξέλιξης, κάτι που θα μπορούσε να χαρακτηριστεί λογικό, αφού το έργο ήταν περιορισμένης έκτασης, παρόλα αυτά σε ουκ ολίγα διηγήματα (δηλαδή ακόμα πιο σύντομης έκτασης) παρατηρείται ανάπτυξη ψυχική χαρακτήρων. Γι' αυτόν το λόγο, η έλλειψη προσωπικοτήτων με θετική ή αρνητική εξέλιξη με δυσαρέστησε.

Γενικότερα, αυτή η ιστορία με διασκέδασε κ με ταξίδεψε, σε επίπεδο ατμόσφαιρας και αρτιότητας της γλώσσας, όμως δε με κέρδισε.