I have never been in a reading slump. Other bloggers have complained of it.
I am, however, existing in a weird alternate world where I am reading several excellent books not entirely to my taste.
And yet they all sound like my kind of book. I expected great things from Rebecca Romney’s Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend. In this charming book, Romney connects Austen’s favorite novels to the vagaries of the antiquarian book market. For instance, the copy of Emma which Jane Austen sent to her favorite writer, Maria Edgeworth, was sold at auction for £79,250.
Much as I enjoy Romney’s narrative, I am not blown away by Austen’s favorite novelists. I enjoyed Frances Burney’s Evelina a few years ago, disliked Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent, and was bored by Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian. As for the other writers Romney mentions, I may try them – someday.
But Edgeworth was suddenly on my radar. When Romney quoted a letter from Jane Austen saying that the only novels she liked were her own and Maria Edgeworth’s, I plucked Edgeworth’s Belinda off the shelf.
Published in 1800, Edgeworth’s rambling novel relates the amusing story of Belinda, a beautiful but sensible young woman whose aunt sends her to London to find a husband. (Evelina dislikes being on the marriage market.) This character-driven novel is as saucy and audacious as my favorite 18th-century novels.
Take lady Delacour, Belinda’s hostess and chaperone. She is witty, outspoken, popular, and as rakish as any man. She defies female conventions and fights a duel with another woman. And though she despises high society, she introduces Belinda to all the right people at parties, masquerades, and balls. Belinda realizes that she prefers a good book to parties.
Lady Delacour has secrets: there is locked boudoir to which only her maid is admitted. Lady Delacour spends hours each day on her makeup and outfits, assisted by her maid. But what is the secret of the boudoir? We have Ann Radcliffe to thank for this “secret,” I fear.
Parts of the novel are entertaining, parts of it drag. I have to admit that Belinda herself, wise beyond her years, is a bit dull. But she teaches lady Delacour to respect morality and family values, and the results are touching.
Edgeworth examines female characteristics as she yo-yos between lady Delacour’s sad, audacious personal life and Belinda’s morals and chastity. .Edgeworth insisted on referring to Belinda as a “Moral Tale” rather than a novel, but it is a novel.
I plan to finish Belinda this weekend, and have figured out the marriage plot. Belinda has two suitors, Charles Hervey, a witty Englishman who is a close friend of lady Delacour, and Mr. Vincent, a rich West Indian gentleman whose Black slave marries a white English servant. This latter detail shocked Edgeworth’s readers.
Can’t wait to finish the book and see if I really did figure out the plot!