Random Jottings

Wednesday jottings

A bits and pieces post today about snippets picked up which I thought might be of interest.

First up, and this bit of information thrilled me no end as I have been wondering if it would ever happen, is that the BBC is producing a new dramatisation of The Pallisers by Trollope.  I have the original series on DVD, made back in the 1970's and, while the sets and backdrops are pretty ropey now, the acting is still wonderful.  However,  a new series is long overdue and so will look forward to this with great interest.  I am attaching a link here with further information, from which you will see that the ubiquitous Andrew Davies is the chosen scriptwriter, so there will be plenty of heaving bosoms and hot flushes around I am sure.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/feb/07/bbc.television

Other piece of information spotted is that we are also to get a new Tess of the D'urbevilles, again for the BBC.  Do we really need one?  There have been at least two in the last ten years plus a film and it is one of Hardy's novels that can suffer from overkill.  I do wish the BBC would try some of his others, Trumpet Major has never been done to my knowledge and while that is a book I have not revisited since I had to read it at school, it would be good to see what could be made of it.

Another snippet - Dame Maggie Smith, who I adore only slightly less than Dame Judi (up for a BAFTA for Cranford) is due to begin work on Julian (Gosford Park) Fellowes' adaptation of Lucy M Boston's The Children of Green Knowe, the BBC version of which I well remember watching with my children when they were small and which, coincidentally was mentioned by Maureen from Random Distractions in a comment on my Goodnight Mr Tom post.  Amazing how often this happens.  That should be worth waiting for.

Have also read recently about the upcoming film of one of my favourite all time books, The Little White Horse (renamed The Mystery of Moonacre) which gives me pause to think.  The part of Sir Benjamin, who is large and round and bald has been given to Ioan Grufydd.  Now I adore Ioan and loved him in Hornblower, but he certainly is nowhere near the description of the character in the book.  The part of Monsieur Coq Noir has, however, been given to Tim Curry which is dream casting so they have got that totally right.  I do hear a whisper that the book is 'being gingered up a bit as let's face it, it is all a bit sweet and too much..."     Oh dear.

This weekend brings up the long awaited showing of the film of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency and I had just finished reading an interview with Anthony Minghella on his thoughts and his plans for the series coming up, when I heard of his tragic death at the early age of 54.  I mentioned one of his films, Truly Madly Deeply just the other day, totally moving with its portrayal of the strength of love after death, and also remember the opening sequence of the English Patient and the ending, again one of those film moments that had me awash.  Last year I saw his production of Madame Butterfly at the ENO which was one of the best I have seen, and the loss to the world of film and theatre is immeasurable.

And, in closing, worth mentioning if anybody has missed it, BBC4 are showing a 1972 version of Emma on Saturday nights at the moment.  I remember seeing this when it was first shown, which is a bit lowering, but also remember that it was very good and Dorian Goodwin in the title role, was well nigh perfect, so was intrigued to see what I would make of this all these years later.  Well, I can report that it is still excellent, sets and costumes a bit dated by today's standards, but the acting good and the dialogue is nearly all Austen and delivered beautifully. 

So a treat indeed and I may very well purchase the set on DVD as, though I have the version with Kate Beckinsale and Gwyneth, I still think this is better.

Let's face it the only reason I have the Gwyneth one is because Jeremy Northam is Mr Knightly.  How shallow is that?

Agatha Raisin

In a post of a few weeks ago I asked you all if you could make suggestions of future crime series that I might enjoy and I was delighted to receive so many suggestions, all of which have been noted and thank you for these.

Before I start on any in this list, I have been given three books by an author called MC Beaton whose lady detective is Agatha Raisin.  A middle aged, rather plain divorcee, who has sold her business in London and bought a cottage in the Cotswolds, she is not exactly a conventional heroine, in fact, is rather bossy and unpleasant at first with a foul temper, who finds she has a talent for solving mysteries.  The first in the series, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death sets the scene after Agatha has moved to the country and is finding that she is lonely and bored.  She decides to enter the local Quiche competition but she cannot cook to save her life so nips up to London to her favourite patisserie, buys a quiche and enters it into the competition with her name on, fully expecting to win.  Local politics being what it is, she does not and furious, she stalks off leaving the quiche behind.  This is taken home by the soi disant posh lady of the village and given to her husband for supper.  He promptly dies and the police find that he was poisoned.

Of course, Agatha soon finds the local constabulary on her doorstep and to prove her innocence has to admit that she is a cheat.  She then decides to take matters into her own hands and find the murderer.  All very dotty and very silly and great fun.  The odd thing was that as I was reading this book I kept trying to remember where I had met Agatha before.  Well I couldn't have done as this was the first to feature her (there are now over 14 I find so jolly good) but she was very familiar with her vaguely off putting personality, and yet at the same time, one felt sorry for her as she was a misfit who did not really fit in anywhere.  It kept nagging at me and then I remembered.  She was just like a character in a series of totally potty Regency novels I read about 25 years ago, all about two middle aged ladies who took difficult girls and put them through their paces and the London Season, for money, and who spent their entire time fighting and squabbling and trying to attract a husband as well as those young ladies who were in their care.  They never succeeded and were rather sad and pathetic but they were also very very funny. 

There was one scene in the Agatha Raisin story which I am currently reading where Agatha gets dressed up to the nines in order to attract her new next door neighbour, a handsome retired colonel who has moved into the village, and who flees in fright when he spots her predatory tactics.  This mirrored exactly another incident in one of the Regency books of this writer of many years ago, one Marion Chesney.  I felt the coincidence was very strong so did a bit of googling and lo and behold Marion Chesney and M C Beaton are one and the same.  Amazing that I can remember those two Regency ladies for so long and recognise the characteristics in Agatha.  Obviously, they were strongly enough written that I did not forget them.

As I said, these books are delightfully funny and I already love Agatha and feel that I am going to enjoy reading the lot.  The blurbs tend to go on about Agatha being another Miss Marple which I suppose is to be expected, but the only similarity is the fact that all the murders take place in a country village, they are not in the same league as Mrs Christie's creation.

Mark you, the heroine being named Agatha is probably not a coincidence.....

Cry baby

After posting about Goodnight Mr Tom and also mentioning the Railway Children, it was gratifying to find that lots of you out there also succumb at the 'Daddy my Daddy' scene at the end of the film.  At first watching that was the moment where I burst into tears, on further watching it was the scene at Bobby's birthday party, later on it was...well, all of it really and now I cannot hear the theme tune in the first five minutes without welling up.

I have always been a weeper at movies.  Any version of Little Woman when it comes to Beth dying reduces me to a sodden heap, Brief Encounter ('Alec can you ever forgive me' 'I'll forgive you if you forgive me' cue Rachmaninoff second piano concerto) another two tissue watch, the old black and white version of A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim as Scrooge, still the best one in my opinion, and Tiny Tim's 'God Bless us Every one' guaranteed to set me off (mark you, the Muppet Christmas Carol with a baby Kermit as Tiny Tim also does it), the list is endless. 

Every Saturday night when we were kids my mum, my sister and I went to the local flea pit and it was at the Century Cinema (now demolished and Camden Town Hall built on top) that I saw a film that really was the biggest weepie ever.  Called Miracle in the Rain it starred Jane Wyman and Van Johnson and told the story of a lonely woman living with her mother in New York who meets and falls in love with an American soldier.  They only have a short time together before he goes off to fight taking with him a cross she gives him to wear and, inevitably, he is killed.  She is distraught and grief stricken and becomes ill and in the middle of a thundering rain storm, feverish and with a soaring temperature, she makes her way to her local church and prays that he comes back to her because she loves him so much.  Then the screen went all wobbly, like it used to do in old black and white movies, and there he was telling her he loved her and asking her to take care of the cross she gave him.  He kisses her and then disappears and she collapses on the altar steps where she is found by her mother and the priest.  She is dead.  Her mother sees she is clutching something in her hand and when she prises open her fingers, there is the cross that her dead lover had been wearing when he was killed. At this stage the rain stopped and the sun came out and that was the end of the film.

Yes, it sounds totally over the top I know, but I tell you my mother, my sister and I were absolutely shaking with sobs by the time the film finished. We had reached the hiccuping stage, we all had swollen eyes and sore throats and, this was pre-Kleenex day, we had one small hankie between us and it was totally sodden and we actually rang it out when we got home.  I have never forgotten that film and in checking it out tonight, find it is available on DVD.  I shall have to get it again and wallow, nothing for it.

Many years later another film reduced me to the same state, this time I was watching with my daughter Kathryn, and my husband came into the room where we were watching TV, took one look at us, said O my God, and left.  The film was Truly, Madly Deeply and Juliet Stephenson was simply heartbreaking.  A real five star weepie.

My younger daughter, Helen, never cries at movies.  I don't know why, she just doesn't and I was beginning to think I had raised a creature with a heart of stone and then we went to see ET.  Success! that did it and she was in tears, nothing of course compared to her mother who when ET says 'Ouch' at the end of the movie, touches his heart and hugs Eliot, dissolved into a puddle on the floor, but still there were real tears and I thought 'That's my gal'.

I could go on all night about the movies that have turned me into a sodden wreck but I will refrain from boring you further.  However, I would like to know what reduces all you lovely blogpeople to a weeping heap be it in the cinema or on the TV so that I can take comfort in the fact I am not the only watering pot around.

One film I have not mentioned which traumatised an entire generation, of which I was one, is of course Bambi.  I remember having to be carted out of the cinema, howling, and even now I cannot watch the death of his mother as I get into such a state. I have yet to meet anybody who does not find this deeply upsetting.  Walt has a lot to answer for....

Light Reading

In keeping with my idle weekend of rest which has seen me move from bed to sofa to kitchen for purposes of tea making, back to sofa, sleep on sofa, go to bed, get up, get paper and take it back to sofa, have lovely wallowy oily bath and back to sofa, I have been looking at books which fit the description of 'light reading'. 

I am working my way through Ngaio Marsh for the umpteenth time and yesterday read Light Thickens, her last book with the murder set during a performance of Macbeth and bringing back characters she used in Death at the Dolphin some 20 years earlier which makes for interest.  This book is rather self indulgent with over half of it given over to endless descriptions of the production and rehearsals of this play and I feel rather glad that Dame Ngaio did not get round to producing this as it all sounded a tad precious to me.  Still, a slightly under the weather Ngaio is still streets ahead of a lot of other detective novels so I still enjoyed it.  I then turned to another of hers, Off with his Head which I have not read for over 10 years and had forgotten all about which made it interesting.  Set in a bleak village in the Winter Solstice with a version of an old folk dance and a death that takes place during its performance, it strikes me as being well researched and very reminiscent in its somewhat esoteric pages of information, as a DL Sayers, particularly Nine Tailors with all the stuff about bell ringing and the different variations given in that book.  Even if I cannot understand it, quite fascinating.

Then I read something totally silly and light, Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen which I stumbled across on Amazon and decided to buy simply because I liked the cover and it sounded fun.

"My ridiculously long name is Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, daughter to the Duke of Glen Carry and Rannock and I am as they say, flat broke.  A girl of my standing, that is thirty-fourth in line to the throne, is good for only a few things: perfecting my curtsy, hosting fetes and, oh, marrying into a noble family for the ever so romantic reason of securing allies"

Set in the 1930's, Georgina is determined to make her way in the world and stand up for herself and after her brother, wonderfully named Binky and who calls her Old Girl, decides he cannot afford her allowance any more, she takes herself off to London. After an abortive attempt to be a sales girl in Harrods, which lasts all of five hours, she then sets up a cleaning agency, with herself as the only member of staff, totally undaunted by the fact that she has never lit a fire in her life, cooked a meal or wielded a duster.

She is staying all alone in the family town house where Binky comes down to meet with a Frenchman who is trying to lay claim to the family estate, stating that their long departed gambling father lost his fortune to him in a card game.  Later, on returning home after a cleaning job, she finds his dead body in the bath and her brother vanished back up to Scotland.  What is she to do?

Being an indomitable kind of girl with good connection ons (she takes tea with Queen Mary and also goes to parties with the Prince of Wales and meets Mrs Simpson) she decides to set to and solve the mystery herself after her brother is arrested.  It is very clear that somebody is also trying to murder her as a series of near misses with a falling stone off a roof, being pushed under a Tube train and being hauled overboard on a boat trip, all fail through sheer luck.  Of course, as this is the first in what appears to be a future series, our plucky heroine will survive the first book, and it goes without saying that she triumphs and beats Scotland Yard in finding the culprit who I had rumbled almost mediately.

Great fun, very silly, and I look forward to the next one.

Fitted my mood beautifully this weekend.

Lazy Weekend

Was going to visit a very good friend this weekend, but feeling so tired still and not sure that the last vestige of the virus I had last month has yet been expunged from my system, so I cried off.  I knew she would understand my need to do simply nada for a couple of days and she did, bless her.  As did another good friend who I was going to visit over Easter and also cancelled for reasons of sheer tiredness. So grateful thanks to both for being so sweet about my no-shows.

So what have I done this morning?  Not a lot.  Found myself in bed last night, tucked up with light out and fast asleep by 10 pm and to my total astonishment did not wake up till 8 am this morning with the sun (yes it was out for all of five minutes) shining in the window and feeling very rested (me that is not the sun).  Into kitchen, kettle on and egg in saucepan. Five minutes later back to bed with boiled egg, toast and tea, propped up the pillows and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in style.  Fell asleep again afterwards and then finally got up around 10am and wandered around in my dressing gown till 11 am.

Remembered I had to nip down to the Post Office to collect an item which had not had enough postage on it so down there I went (discarding dressing gown for clothing before I left, fear not) and discovered that it was my missing Mother's Day card from my elder daughter who had sworn blind she had sent it.  It had some flowers and the word Mum on the outside and apparently this was enough to make it too thick for first class postage and so I had to pay £1.06 to collect it.  The message inside was worth far more so I was delighted to finally have it and it is perched in front of me as I write this post.

So what am I going to do for the rest of the day?  The picture above gives a clue I think.  I decided I might watch some TV but then seeing that it is wall to wall rugby decided perhaps not, so will now sit and idly flick through some magazines, not even sure I am up to reading anything today.  I feel totally brain dead.

What I might do is download some more CDs onto my iPod. I have a pile I shamelessly borrowed from another friend and she was happy to let me have them.

My friends are all very good to me....

Goodnight Mr Tom

Every now and then a book comes along which is destined to become a 'classic'.  When I was a child, one of my favourites was Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, still in print and still being read some forty years later.  Rosemary Sutcliff is another name that comes to mind when thinking in this category, Noel Streatfield and many more. 

When my daughters were young and beginning to enjoy their reading, we came across 'Goodnight Mr Tom' by Michelle Magorian.  She has written others, all as good and one, in particular, became the favourite of my elder teenager, 'Coming Home' which dealt with the return from America of a young girl sent there during the Second World War for her safety and her difficulties in adjusting to life back in the UK and redefining her relationship with her mother.  But, Goodnight Mr Tom remains, for me anyway, the one I love the best.

It tells the story of William Beech a young boy evacuated to the country and billeted on Mr Tom, old and alone who has shunned village life and companionship since the death of his wife and son in childbirth many years ago.  He is not too happy at having a small child thrust upon him or the responsibility, but something in this insecure frightened boy strikes a chord in him, they are both lonely and unloved, and gradually they begin to form a relationship as Mr Tom teaches William to read and write and build up his confidence as it is clear he has been beaten and badly treated by his mother.  Mr Tom becomes a father figure to William and, as he makes friends in the village, particularly another evacuee Zach Wrench (a confident child whose parents are on the stage) he blossoms and gains in self esteem and happiness.

Before William finds his happy ending with Mr Tom, he has many vicissitudes to cope with (upon which I will not elaborate as I don't want to give the plot away), but by the end of the story he has learned to deal with grief and sorrow and has found a loving father in Mr Tom who, in his turn, has found happiness in his love for his adopted son. When a TV film was made, with the late John thaw as Mr Tom, I was worried that it would not do the book justice, but was delighted to see that, with a few slight changes, it was beautifully done.

I think this is a simply enchanting book, it always makes me cry each time I reread it, which I do often. The copy I have on my shelf is the one I bought for my daughters years ago, now very battered and worn, but I love the cover and as it is part of my daughter's childhood, I will not part with it. 

I have this on DVD and yes, each time I watch it, I cry again.  If I want a really lachrymose afternoon I watch this and then The Railway Children, the ending of which and the cry of 'Daddy my Daddy' always finishes me off completely. 

I well remember my younger daughter, always a very practical child, saying 'Mum what are you crying for, this is a happy ending".  Well, of course she was right but it doesn't stop me having a wallow....

Under the Greenwood Tree - Thomas Hardy

Well started a post on this book, hit a key, screen went blank and when it came back up all my learned discourse (ok my thoughts...) had vanished down a cyberhole so here I go again.

Enjoyed this book very much in a relaxed way.  One of those quiet reads where if you are looking for thrills and spills, well you are in the wrong place, not many of them in Mellstock, though the decision to axe the church choir and musicians, and replace them with an organ, looked promising. The first half of the book mainly concerns the choir and this decision by the new vicar, Mr Maybold, together with the local squire, Mr Shiner. Of course, it transpires that Fancy Day, the recently arrived schoolmistress is to play this instrument and, as both the vicar and Mr Shiner are in love with her, you might just think that they have an ulterior motive or two.

One point made in the Introduction to this novel (which I always read after I have finished) is that the people of Mellstock do what is right and, in this case, the choir accept their dissolution as they feel Mr Maybold is in charge of the church and it is up to him to make the decisions as to what takes place there, as they would make decisions in their own homes and farms.  So the rather interesting premise of a battle royal over the choir dies the death which I think is rather a shame.

Second half of the book then centres on Fancy Day and her suitors.  Up to now, Fancy has been rather a shadowy figure but now she takes centre stage nd we learn that Dick Dewey saw her at her window on Christmas Eve when he and the choir were taking part in their traditional carol singing round the village, and fell deeply in love with her.  Though she accepts his later proposal of marriage we are not really sure that heart is totally engaged and that she views Dick as slightly beneath her.  One day he comes to visit after walking a long distance in the pouring rain and she notes:

"I like Dick and love him, but how plain and sorry a man looks in the rain with no umbrella and wet through"

Hardly a glowing endorsement and when we learn that swayed by the promise of fine things and a carriage she accepts Mr Maybold's proposal of marriage which she then quickly retracts,  you do begin to wonder where her fancy will alight next.  She is aptly named.

However, we have a happy ending with their marriage and a meeting under the Greenwood Tree where everyone gathers to celebrate the wedding day.  The choir and musicians are there to provide the music for the dancing and festivities before Fancy and Dick set off on their married life.  One cannot help but feel that Dick, besotted with Fancy as he is and aware that he was considered not good enough for her, is going to be disappointed in the end.

With Hardy, of course, one of the pleasures of his writing is his love of the countryside and his lyrical descriptions of same and the backdrop of the changing seasons and weather are, as always, a sheer joy:

"....country people go to sleep amongst nearly naked trees, are lulled to sleep by a fall of rain and awake next morning to green ones;.....when the apple trees have bloomed and the roads and orchard grass become spotted with fallen petals; when the faces of the delicate flowers are darkened and their heads weighed down by the throng of honey-bees..."

Lines like that remind me why, though I sometimes waver, I love Hardy.

Tuesday Twitterings

Not a huge amount of reading being done at the moment.  I am still feeling the after effects of the virus a few weeks ago and feeling very tired so am coming home and going to bed pretty early with a book, but am falling asleep before I can get any serious reading done.  Fighting my way to and from the office in the current weather is not exactly relaxing either and today I binned my second wrecked umbrella of the week. Down to my last two now. 

To cheer me up today, a parcel from Amazon was delivered to my desk and inside was the new Reginald Hill Dalziel and Pascoe and the latest in the No 1 Detective Agency series so I gloated over these treats, but have decided to save them up for this weekend when I fully intend to spend most of it either in bed or on the sofa doing nothing.

Another book which arrived in the parcel was Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson.  This is a prequel to Anne of Green Gables and, according to the front page, is authorised by the heirs of L M Montgomery and, of course, is being published this year as we celebrate the centenary of the creation of one of the most loved of all children's characters.  I adore Anne so this book was a shoe-in as far as I was concerned.  I came across an article about it the other day so here is the link for those of you who are interested.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3504120.ece

Not too sure about the cover though.

I am half way through Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy and enjoying it very much and am taking it a chapter at a time, very Lark Rise to Candlefordish with lots of country background and the ground is being set for a battle between the new vicar and the choir which is shaping up nicely to be hard fought with no holds barred.  I should finish it by the weekend and then intend to rewatch the DVD of the same which was broadcast a couple of years ago at Christmas and which I thought was delightful.  Will be interesting to watch it again after reading the text.

Sourcebooks, as well as sending me Mrs Darcy's Dilemma, which is taking blogdom by storm at the moment, have also kindly sent me another story relating to the Darcy family, then the Pemberley Chronicles and finally, the Watsons, the fragment which has been completed by Joan Aiken.  As Joan Aiken has already produced Return to Mansfield Park and Jane Fairfax, she is well versed in the Austen tradition so that will be fun to read.

At a book sale last year I picked up a copy of The Watsons, this time completedc by an author I had never heard of, John Coates, published in 1958.  It reads well but I know nothing of Mr Coates so intend to do some research.  Apparently he has written other novels amongs which are titles True as a Turtle, Lettie and Consult Your Pillow.  I feel a Googling coming on....

Off for another early night and see if I can actually stay awake to read a chapter or two.

Stormy Monday

Nearly blown over this morning as I got out of the car at the station on the start of another weekly commute.  Umbrella blown inside out and totally wrecked so it ended up in the dustbin and I made my way through the wind and rain with no buffer against the results.  The walk from Liverpool Street to the office was hard fought as parts of the Barbican, which I cut through, are wind tunnels at the best of times.  I was glad to arrive at my desk, somewhat dishevelled, but in one piece.

I have been looking at pictures taken round the coast of the effects of today's storm and this one at Lyme Regis is magnificent as well as frightening.  All Austen lovers of course will know that this is the Cobb, where Louisa Musgrove nearly came to a sticky end, ditto Meryl Streep..

Death and the Maidens - Janet Todd

This title has been in my ongoing reading list for some time.  I started it but was then laid low with a combination of the mirror incident and a virus and it had to be abandoned.  This means that the impetus slowed right down and I had to refresh my mind and check my rather notes and concentrate to immerse myself once more. I have to state right at the beginning of this post that my knowledge of the history and literature of this period is pretty sketchy.  I am now beginning to get used to the idea that publishers deem me capable of reviewing books sent to me, though I shall never be anything but overwhelmed that they think this way, and can usually tackle a review fairly confidently.  When a book such as Death and the Maidens arrives, I am slightly less confident.  Janet Todd is Professor of English at Aberdeen University and as well as writing an biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, she is also the general editor of the definitive Cambridge edition of Jane Austen.  So deep breath and here goes.

The subtitle of Death and the Maidens is Fanny Wollstonecraft and the Shelley Circle.  Fanny was the child of Mary Wollstonecraft by her lover Gilbert Imlay, who abandoned them both.  Mary then became the lover and later the wife of William Godwin, a journalist, philosopher and author and in due course a second daughter was born to them.  Mary did not survive childbirth and Godwin was thus left with two young children to raise.  It was not too long before Godwin married again, probably out of necessity more than anything else and more children were born.  In this household, Fanny was the one child who had no blood relatives, both her parents were her step-parents, and her sense of displacement of never being sure of her place in the family was part of her make up. She revered Godwin 'to Fanny he was a wonderful overbearing presence for whose artistic powers she had the greatest respect'.    She 'served him with an enthusiasm that was both intellectual and emotional'. 

Shelley's arrival and his ideal of free love had a devastating effect on the Godwin household. The story of Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein, Shelley and Byron, has been well documented so it is not necessary for me to write about this aspect here, only the effect this break up of the family had on Fanny, herself in love with Shelley and who was left behind when Mary and Shelly went to Switzerland.  She wrote to them how much she longed to be included in their life 'I had rather live all my life with the Genevese...' She imagined them enjoying themselves by the lake, was fascinated by Byron and asked for information and gossip 'tell him that you have a friend who has few pleasures and is very impatient to read the poems written at Geneva'.

This was a painful and lonely time for Fanny. Many of the other Godwin children had left home and escaped to other interests and she felt abandoned and miserable.  When Shelley and Mary returned to England she was surprised not to meet her sister or receive any invitation to join them in Bath and she determined to visit them even though Mary had parted irritably with her before leaving for Geneva and had recently been cross with her.  Fanny was not invited to their lodgings, instead Shelley went to meet her at the coaching inn where she was waiting. He would have to put her off somehow.

No record of this meeting is available. Fanny appealeded to Shelley but did not directly tell him of her love for him. He withheld himself, ignored her appeal and left her alone.  There are poetic fragments which form the only account of what might have happened:

'Her voice did quiver as we parted

yet knew not I that heart was broken

From which it came and I departed

Heeding not the words then spoken'

Fanny had been rejected once more and for the last time and she now determined to end her life.  She travelled to Swansea by the Bristol Coach and took a room in a coaching inn, the Mackworth Arms, in Wind Street.  She had no difficulty in obtaining laudanum and then went to her room where she wrote letters to Shelley and Godwin in which she said she was 'disgusted with life'.  All her hopes had been vested in Mary and Shelley and when they cruelly rejected her she had nothing left to live for.

"I have long determined that the best thing I could do was to put an end to the existences of a being whose birth was unfortunate and whose life has only been a series of pain to those persons who have hurt their health in promoting her welfare.  Perhaps to hear of my death will given you pain but you will soon have the blessing of forgetting that such a creature every existed"

Fanny then took the laudanum and went to bed without undressing and waited for death.  She had signed her final note but it was found later that the signature had been torn off presumably to conceal her identity. Nobody came forward to claim the body which was buried in a pauper's grave and her death was hushed up and kept secret from family and friends for fear of a scandal.  It seems such a lonely and tragic end.....

"Full of warmth and affectionate and ideal aspirations; sympathetically responsive to every poem,e very work of art appealing to the imagination, she was condemned by her temperament and the surroundings of her life to idealize nothing, and to look at all objects as they presented themselves to her in the light of the very commonest day'

I am glad that Janet Todd has researched the life of what is, to us, a largely unknown character in the Mary, Shelley and Byron canon, about which so much has been written. This is what makes history so fascinating, exploring the byways and going down hidden paths to the discovery at the end.

I am aware that I have encapsulated Fanny's story in a few paragraphs and have not given a full sense of the desolation and rejection she suffered from all her life that brought her to her untimely end. A post twice as long as this would be needed so if you feel after reading this that her death seemed somewhat abrupt then the fault is mine and I can only recommend that you obtain a copy of this book and read it for yourself .  (Please also read an excellent review over on Vulpes Libris )

As I stated at the start of this post, I was somewhat daunted at reviewing Death and the Maidens, so I hope I have done it justice and made you want to read this thoughtful and intriguing book.