M. V. Hughes (1866–1956)

A London Child of the 1870s is a collection of remembrances of the author’s life, living in suburban London in the 1870s. Molly Hughes, nee Thomas, was born in 1866 and grew up in the company of four older brothers.

The whole tone of the book is very nostalgic, a kind of “what had been” about Hughes’s early life, looking back on it fifty years on, sometimes comparing “then with “now.” And the book is very sentimental in many places, the author fudging a bit at the end the show more circumstances of her father's death. And yet it’s a very, very funny collection of remembrances, covering everything from trips to Cornwall to visit relatives to what was read on Sundays when no “fun” books were allowed (“Again and again I turned to something entitled The Dark Journey, only to find that it was an account of one’s digestion. You may wonder why I did this more than once, but I always hoped that I had been mistaken, and that such a splendid title must mean a good story. No, there was still that forbidding picture of one’s insides cut through the middle” (p. 86)). Hughes’s book isn’t exactly told from the point of view of herself as a child, but I think this is a very readable account of a middle-class family of the period. However, as a side note, I didn't much care for Adam Gopnik's Preface--I've always found his writing to be rather self-centered and pretentious. Somehow he manages to make this Preface all about himself and his experience living on the Upper East Side of New York City in the '80s, an area of the city which he manages to make sound like a third-world country.

After Molly Hughes’s father died in 1879, her life became very difficult indeed; her family was left with very little money and so the five children of the family were forced to go to work (Molly went to the Cambridge Training College—later called Hughes Hall and incorporated into Cambridge University—and became a teacher). Later, both her husband and young daughter died and so there was always a sense of sadness about her life. And yet Hughes managed to live to the age of ninety, so one has to think that she must have been a very strong, resilient woman indeed.

A London Child of the 1870s (previously published as A London Child of the Seventies) is the first book in a trilogy that continues with A London Girl of the 1880s and A London Family in the 1890s (though this of course is the only one of the three that Persephone has published. Despite my reservations about this book, I do wish that Persephone will someday publish the other two, as A London Child… is nonetheless an interesting read about “just an ordinary, suburban, Victorian family, undistinguished [themselves] and unacquainted with distinguished people.” show less

The author of this lovely memoir states at the outset that nothing really noteworthy happens to her, and in a lot of ways that is true. However, her thoughts and impressions of life from 1870 to 1900 are a riveting window into Victorian England. She journeys to America and Canada as a young adult, and her impressions of the colonies gave me a perspective that I hadn't ever seen. She trains as a teacher, and her insights into both teaching and kids are timeless. She's learned enough to send show more me to Google to translate some Ovid which she assumed any reader would know and sent me to the dictionary more than once with words like ataraxy but at the same time she's handy enough in the kitchen to aver that all bread needs is time and warmth.

Here's a bit on bread:
"People dislike the idea of trying this for themselves because of the 'time it takes'. The bread certainly wants time, I assure them, but not their time; it doesn't ask to be watched, and can be trusted alone in the house; the actual labour in making a batch takes about six minutes from start to finish. But they shake their heads in a melancholy way as they ask for another slice.

Recommended to anyone with a shred of curiosity. show less

Lovely continuation of the London trilogy. I found it interesting, telling and almost unbearably poignant that Hughes wrote of her life up to her marriage and then started this last memoir after the death of her beloved. Put me in mind of Donne ('twere profanation of our joys...) and made me long for a dose of British reserve in my daily papers. Hughes wrote vividly, accessibly and well. I adored this book as I adored the first three. Highly recommended.

In this sweet book, readers are treated to a glimpse of real, day-to-day life in England during the mid-late Victorian era. The author was the youngest child in her family, the only girl with four older brothers, and it's comforting to see that sibling behavior isn't much different then from what it is now. There are hours spent squabbling, playing make-believe, and being forced by your parents to do things that you'd rather not have to do. At its core, life isn't really much different 140 show more years ago.

Molly's mother, who had come from a wealthy and educated family in Cornwall, encouraged her daughter to be curious and adventurous in her learning and experiences. However, Molly was not segregated from the sentiments of her time. For example, she was forbidden from attending theater or live entertainment as her brothers freely could. She was educated in the Victorian style, meaning not much formal education - it wasn't until she was over 10 years old that she attended a traditional school. Her brothers were in private schools from a very young age, and many of them attended university and all of them went on to independent careers.

Molly was reared to be what was expected of her - a wife, mother, and not much more. Although this was the spirit and presumption of the time, it wasn't as though the author automatically internalized and accepted it. In fact, there are so many examples of situations where, in her young life, Molly is exasperated and frustrated by the fact that there are so many things she wants to do, or places she wants to go, but cannot because she is a female. It gives a modern reader pause to reflect on how far society has come with regard to gender equality, but also how far it has yet to go.

Another interesting point of reflection is on the technological advances that society has experienced. Transportation, for example, was a much different experience. Buses were pulled by horses or other such animals. The streets were mostly dirt and mud, not the asphalt-topped smooth experiences we know today. Trains were much slower and less precise with their timetables, and journeys were far more arduous. It makes one appreciate modern travel, for its convenience, relative comfort, and cleanliness.

The daily activities of housekeeping, even with household servants, were also much more tedious and physically demanding than they are now. The effort to cook and serve a meal in the 1870's is much greater than what we know in our modern society. The maintaining and cleaning of clothing and household linens was an arduous ordeal. No automatic washing machines or electric clothes irons to be found. The relative ease and quickness to obtain a load of clean laundry nowadays is something many of us take for granted. After reading A LONDON CHILD, that is no longer the case.

One of the greatest takeaways from this book was the general freedom that children had in London, which was a far less populated city in the 1870's than it is now. Running around to nearby parks and Gardens was not uncommon, and parents were not constantly chaperoning their children. If playing with siblings or friends resulted in the breaking of a window, nobody was too upset. But, it is important that the reader remember that Molly Hughes wrote this long after her childhood had passed. Although she reportedly kept journals throughout her life, I suspect that she might have been wearing some rose-colored glasses when she wrote these experiences down. As we all would be inclined to do. show less