(e)Book – Victorian Short Stories Stories of Successful Marriage

  (e)Book –  Victorian Short Stories Stories of Successful Marriage

Author:  George Augustus Moore ; Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell ; Thomas Hardy ; Sir Walter Besant ; Henry James 

Score: 6/10
Year: 2015 (original & this edition) 

Publisher:  Floating Press 

ISBN 9781776677955/ 978-1-77667-795-5 (this e-book edition) 

Pages :  88

A collection of Victorian short stories about marriage written by five well-known authors: George Augustus Moore (1852-1933), Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865), Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901) and Henry James (1843-1916).

I like that these stories are set in chronological order of publication : 1858, 1885, 1892, 1895 and 1900. The quality of storytelling is very varied, and sadly, we only have one woman author, and four men. Let's see in details.

In Gaskell's "The Manchester marriage" (p.5-29) , published in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Works on Christmas 1858 , we meet Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw who have to move from Manchester to London for business. The story recounts first their pasts, a 'present' and finishes many years in their future, in a story where she - Gaskell - adds a comment on Victorian societal attitudes towards marriage, via a tragic component and a touching, unforseen resolution to the various characters' stories included. 

On the other hand, in Hardy's A mere interlude (p.30-58) published in the Bolton Weekly Journal on 17 and 24 October 1885, it is clearer to be written by a man, is cringey to modern readers and too predictable, despite its overall fluid narrative in 7 chapters. 

It is cringey due to the age-gap between the main protagonist, Baptista Trewthen, and her prospective husband, David Heddegan - especially Baptista tells her story to Mrs Wace, a widdow who provided her a room. Indeed, she recounts that when she was a girl, Mrs Heddegan would take her on his knee and tell her that one day he'd marry her. This is the cringiest part. 

The Interlude is the gap of time between Baptista's missing the steamboat  from Pen-zephyr to St Mary's, her maiden-life and her married life. It is also the gap between this, and a month later, when truths are revealed about what happened, and ulterior motives for each of the main characters - with an ending that I absolutely hated, because Hardy seems to offer a male fantasy of a woman, subduing her role to what is expected, not offering any critic of his society, but rather being part of the problem - and contrary to the better elements in Gaskell's story detailed above. 

George Moore's A Faithful heart (p. 59-69) has the least fluid style of these stories thus far ; he used some lengthy phrases that should have been cut from one or two into several, more eloquent and less annoying ones, in  my opinion. It tells a story about Major Shepherd, his estrangement from his parents, his subsequent secretive life with his wife for over 10 years, and her faithful heart is about her sole role in this story : torn between her wish for a better life than her lot, but also wanting to keep her husbands' secret because she feels she owes him that much - and keeping it is shown as a strength and the hole goal of this story. After all, he married her despite her social status, right?

This story would disappoint my modern eyes, but it was published 16 April 1892 - in The Speaker magazine - so I must cut it slack on this message. 

Message aside, though, as I said, I found the style less fluid and less esthetic.

Walter Besant's short story The solid Gold Reef Company, Limited (p.70-75) was published in Deacon's Orders and other stories in 1895. It tells a story of Reginald and Rosie, from courting, to a year into their marriage, each of its 5 acts following a key moment. It's a bit funny in an ironic way, and though its style is more like a play with some discontinuity in storytelling - jumping from one point in time to the next at the turn of act - is fluid in reading and fast paced. 

The reason I had borrowed this e-book was my search for a short story by Henry James - as I liked each of the 7 previous stories I read by him. This ebook finishes with his story The Tree of Knowledge (p.76-88), published in 1900 in The Soft Side. We meet Peter Brench, an author, and the Mallow family : Morgan, an artist, his wife (not named, only Mrs Mallow), and their son, Lance (shortened from his birth name Lancelot). 

The story centers on Peter, now a 50 year old Bachelor, who never married as he had been in love with Mrs Mallow, but, also faithful to his friend Morgan, had never pursued her. Now at 50, he spends time with the Mallows, and through dialogues with Lance, his godson, we come to know what he views about knowledge, and why he is reluctant to let Lance go study art in Paris and what comes out of it when he does... 

As always, I loved this story too. 8th Henry James that I read, 5th and last in this collection, it makes up for some of the less interesting previous stories, as I loved Gaskell's (1st story) and  this 5th one the best, followed by Besant's, and then, in last position and equal (for different reasons), the other 2 stories. With one that is too cringey, but well written -Hardy's Mere Interlude- as opposed to the final moral in Moore's Faithful Heart, less cringey but less interesting storytelling as well. So, all of this males up a medium note of 6/10.