Penelope's Progress (1898)

This is the delightful sequel to Penelope's Experiences in England, and I downloaded it with squeals of delight onto my Kindle (my first Gutenburg download) The Squeals were entirely justified, as it is as lovely as the first volume (making allowance for the excess of Scots dialect which does become a little 'much') Penelope, Francesca and Salemina, three single (although P is now engaged) American women, travel to Scotland to continue their adventures in Great Britain. They enchant, and are enchanted by, Edinburgh society, and settle into a quaint country cottage where their doings and those of the villagers are described to the reader with lightness and wit. The episode of 'playing Sir Patrick Spens' is especially good.
The modern reader must approach these books with 21st century prejudices packed away and entirely forgotten. I cannot pretend that they are progressive, groundbreaking or brave in any way. But they are well-observed, funny and very much of their time (1890s-1900s) The three friends inhabit a world very like that of the adults in Lewis Carroll's 'Sylvie and Bruno', or the parents of Nesbit's Five Children. They are a social class above the Three Men in a Boat, although they might have dared to take tea with them, and would have had a jolly time. I can imagine them visiting the tea garden on the river kept by Mr Polly's 'plump woman' - and they would certainly have been amused at the sign for 'omlets'.
In short, these are little glimpses into a lost world - it's like reading the lives of the people that read the advertisements in The Illustrated London News. Although she tells her story with mirth and an eye for the ridiculous, the heroine's life is serious and real to the narrator, and it is this complete lack of anything arch or false that makes it a joy to read, and the characters such pleasant company. ( )