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The Family at Misrule - Ethel Turner (1895)
The sequel to *Seven Little Australians* was originally titled *Growing Up*. Ethel Turner embraced her child characters developing into adulthood. At this point in her career she was hoping to write adult novels as well as the children’s novels she became famous for.
It is a domestic novel - the plot is a succession of melodrama. Bunty is falsely accused of theft at school and runs off; Poppet believes in him and convinces his headmaster to clear his name; Meg gets engaged to Alan Courtney (with whom she flirted in *Seven Little Australians*); Pip gets engaged to an unsuitable, lower class woman; Meg intervenes and stops it; Nellie visits their parvenu neighbours, is embarrassed by their vulgarity, and repents; she brings back scarlet fever which infects Essie; Essie survives with Meg’s nursing; Meg then gets scarlet fever and both Pip and Nellie repent; then, to wind up a loose end, there is a fire which kills off Meg’s old suitor from *Seven Little Australians*.
It sounds ridiculous when I list it like this, but Essie’s illness and the despairing prayers of her siblings made me cry when I reread it. Though, OK, I was reading it five days after having a baby, so there were a lot of hormones floating about.*
The theme I’d like to discuss is class.
( Read more... )
* I read the books for this challenge in advance, as soon as I know what they will be. This helps when there is a big one, like *War and Peace*.
The sequel to *Seven Little Australians* was originally titled *Growing Up*. Ethel Turner embraced her child characters developing into adulthood. At this point in her career she was hoping to write adult novels as well as the children’s novels she became famous for.
It is a domestic novel - the plot is a succession of melodrama. Bunty is falsely accused of theft at school and runs off; Poppet believes in him and convinces his headmaster to clear his name; Meg gets engaged to Alan Courtney (with whom she flirted in *Seven Little Australians*); Pip gets engaged to an unsuitable, lower class woman; Meg intervenes and stops it; Nellie visits their parvenu neighbours, is embarrassed by their vulgarity, and repents; she brings back scarlet fever which infects Essie; Essie survives with Meg’s nursing; Meg then gets scarlet fever and both Pip and Nellie repent; then, to wind up a loose end, there is a fire which kills off Meg’s old suitor from *Seven Little Australians*.
It sounds ridiculous when I list it like this, but Essie’s illness and the despairing prayers of her siblings made me cry when I reread it. Though, OK, I was reading it five days after having a baby, so there were a lot of hormones floating about.*
The theme I’d like to discuss is class.
( Read more... )
* I read the books for this challenge in advance, as soon as I know what they will be. This helps when there is a big one, like *War and Peace*.
