Elizabeth Jenkins (1905–2010)

Ohhhh my, this book may be the most devastating portrait of the unraveling of a marriage that I've ever read. Written in 1954, it's a slow burning look at the ways a man can belittle and abandon his wife without her even being aware of it, or at least not at first. Evelyn Gresham is a handsome 52 year old lawyer who has everything he wants, including his doting wife Imogen and his 11 year old son. Their neighbor, near their large country estate, Blanche is everything Imogen isn't: show more unattractive and in her 50s, but athletic and interested in fishing, hunting, racing and other masculine things.

What I liked best was Jenkins way of slowly revealing the way this marriage was falling apart, and how Imogen seemed to operate with blinders on, continuing to cater to Evelyn's every wish and failing to realize what the reader can plainly see. The writing is both humorous and tragic in the way the plot is slowly developed. But this author can take down a character like nothing I've ever seen. Blanche's stepsister, Marcia for instance:

"Marcia Plender was short, plump and middle-aged. She was also excessively feminine, but so far from throwing her stepsister in the shade on this account whatever she might've done when both were girls, she now acted as a foil to her, though one would have been as far from suspecting it as the other. Marcia took great care of her person and appearance though she had allowed herself to get fat. As her constitution required her to rest in bed till half-past twelve and drink two double gins before lunch, it was difficult for her to avoid increasing weight....The assured, formidable appearance, combined with a sugary air, fluttering eyelids and die-away voice, made the beholder turn to Blanche with relief and even a sort of admiration. Blanche's abruptness and half-strangulated accents were not charming, but they were a great deal better than Marcia's efforts at charming" (Page75)

The minor characters are just as fully developed as the three protagonists and the ending knocked my socks off, but in a way, that made me think, "Oh, of course, all signs pointed to this. I should've known."

Just an absolutely brilliant book. show less

I have had this Persephone book on my shelf for a little while now- bought with some lovely Persephone gift vouchers on my Birthday in May. I was so looking forward to it, although I already knew that the story would be a dark one. It almost seems wrong to say I loved it – but I did. The story is a desperately sad one, all the more so for being based upon real events.
“Harriet came with little bouncing steps towards the tea table and looked into the teapot. “This is do Mama,” she show more said; she sometimes confused small words, though she could always make her meaning clear. At the age of thirty-two she had a sallow countenance, with strongly marked lines running from the nostrils to the corners of the lips; her chin receded, and her eyes were the glutinous black of treacle. Apart from her expression, and the slightly slurred enunciation of her words, however, her appearance was one of rather particular neatness and cost.”
In real life Harriet Staunton nee Richardson lived and died very much in line with the events in Elizabeth Jenkins’s 1934 novel. Like the Harriet in the novel, Harriet Staunton had what today we would call learning difficulties, she had been well brought up by her mother, who had taught her how to care for herself, but she had difficulty expressing herself and was prone to making sudden unexplained noises and flying into rages. She also had a legacy of about £5,000 – something like half a million in today’s money. Only one photograph exists of Harriet Staunton, taken upon the occasion of her engagement.
Despite being based upon real life events, I must stress that Harriet, is a novel, though there are I believe non-fiction works written about the famous case too. Elizabeth Jenkins was fascinated by what was known as the Penge mystery of 1877. Publishing this novel in the same year as F. Tennyson Jesse published ‘A pin to see the Peepshow’ which was also based upon a famous murder trial, Jenkins decided to take the unusual step of calling her characters by their real Christian names. Harriet Staunton became Harriet Woodhouse, Louis Staunton, Lewis Oman, Patrick Staunton, becomes Patrick Oman, sisters Elizabeth Staunton (nee Rhodes) and Alice Rhodes are in Jenkins novel Elizabeth Oman and Alice Hoppner respectively.
The story of Harriet is a desperate one, and Jenkins telling of it is a masterly piece of subtle storytelling, Jenkins had no need of gratuitous descriptions – the slow downward spiral of this unfortunate young woman’s life is enough in itself. The selfish greed which leads to Harriet falling victim to Lewis Oman’s handsome charms is brilliantly portrayed. A vulnerable young woman, who had previously only been in the company of her mother and step father with occasional visits made to relatives, easily has her head turned by the attentions of a handsome young man. Lewis the elder of two exceptionally close brothers is already becoming close to Harriet’s cousin, Alice when the two meet. Much to Alice’s horror, Lewis’s attentions switch to Harriet when he learns of her fortune. Lewis’s brother Patrick a surly bad tempered artist, is married to Alice’s elder sister Elizabeth. Lewis and Harriet become quickly engaged, Harriet’s mother is immediately on the alert and does all she can to stop her daughter marrying Lewis; however Harriet is over thirty and with Lewis’s contrivance sets herself against her mother, removing herself from the family home when her mother tries to make her a ward of chancery to prevent her marrying. Harriet and Lewis are married, and from there on there is a terrible inevitability to the events that follow, with Harriet isolated from her mother, again thanks to Lewis’s contrivance, and removed to the country to board with Patrick and Elizabeth, she becomes the unwitting victim to terrible cruelty and neglect.
This is a wonderfully readable novel, though it is a terrible story, made so much more poignant by the fact that the reader knows that it is a pretty accurate recreation of actual events. In his fascinating afterward to this edition Richard Cooke discusses the trial verdicts and Elizabeth Jenkins’s career and her obvious fascination with this case. show less

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1339747.html

I have to say this is one of the more interesting biographies of Elizabeth I that I have read. Jenkins makes a good argument that Elizabeth's determination to remain unmarried stemmed not just from the abuse she suffered in her teens from her stepmother, Catherine Parr, and Parr's new husband Seymour, but also from the childhood echoes of her own mother's execution - an event she could barely remember, but which was echoed in the beheading of another show more stepmother when she was eight. Apparently she told Leicester at one point that she had been determined never to marry since the age of eight; as Jenkins more or less puts it. join the dots.

Armed with this assumption, Jenkins has Elizabeth enjoying the thrills of the romantic chase but consciously or subconsciously determined never to reach the point that her male suitors desired to reach - she almost got caught out by the Duc d'Alençon, but I think she always knew that Parliament would never approve the marriage. She flaunted her body to her suitors (and indeed to others) but evaded physical contact. I found Jenkins' analysis very convincing.

Jenkins also offered further insights into a number of other Elizabethan questions. First, she is very good at analysing Mary Queen of Scots - there is an interesting study to be done comparing and contrasting how she and her grandson ended up losing their heads for rather similar reasons. Second, I now understand rather better one of the ways in which the Irish question shifted during Elizabeth's reign - once her cousin and prisoner Mary had been acknowledged as potentially legitimate by the Pope and the French and Spanish, a wholly new basis emerged for continental intervention in Irish affairs. Third, Jenkins is rather positive on English Catholics, most of whom remained loyal to Elizabeth except in extremis; the students at the English College in Rome cheered when they heard the Armada had failed in 1588.

And fourth, danciing at court masques and balls is frequently mentioned by Jenkins as an essential part of the political equation. There's lots of exciting interdisciplinary research to be done there. I'll bluntly assert that it's difficult to imagine dancing being an important factor while either of Elizabeth's siblings was on the throne. (NB that Shakespeare's Henry VIII has her father gatecrashing a dance incognito, in order to seduce her mother.) But again, I don't recall a single mention of dancing among the distractions available for government officials in Ireland in Elizabeth's day; it looks like this was an activity driven by the queen's personal preferences. (And my namesake and ancestor gets two brief mentions in the book, both fabourable!)

Anyway, this was well worth searching out. The book is fifty years old, but stands up well in comparison with more recent works on the same subject. show less

This was a phenomenal read, brilliant in the way it establishes its characters and then sat back and pressed play so that the characters may continue to meander along their courses to bounce and collide off of each other.

It's the book version of the line "Still waters run deep". We are taken along to tea time picnics, nursery visits, antique shops, house visits, day to day occurrences. The tension almost silently clicked over at every one of these events, and the discomfort and internal show more yelling crept up on me so gradually that it really felt true to life.

My own ignorance of the plot made me really immerse myself in the protagonist's own uncertainties. A truly insightful dissection of what drives us and our actions. show less