Cometh Up As A Flower (Broadview Editions) [Paperback]

Rhoda Broughton (Author), Pamela K. Gilbert (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2010 | ISBN-10: 155111805X | ISBN-13: 978-1551118055 | Edition: 1

An important sensation novel, Cometh Up as a Flower made Rhoda Broughton's reputation and fortune while also attracting harsh criticism. Nell LeStrange, the heroine, is torn between duty to her family and her own passion. What angered critics of the time was the heroine's frank discussion of her sexual attraction to her lover, and her dispassionate evaluation of loveless marriage as a form of self-sale. Broughton's lively, colloquial narrative voice, witty observations of contemporary manners, and sympathetic portrayal of the lives and feelings of young women, though no longer shocking, are as engaging now as they were to her readers of 1867. This Broadview Edition includes an extensive selection of appendices on the novel's reception (including a parody of Broughton), Victorian discourses on health and medicine, and contemporary attitudes towards women, marriage, and sexuality.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This excellent and affordable edition of Broughton's racy bestseller, with Pamela Gilbert's informative and accessible introduction, detailed explanatory notes, and extremely useful contextual material, is a valuable addition to the Broadview list of works by women writers of the nineteenth century." (Lyn Pykett )

"Students and general readers will revel in Broughton's compulsively readable novel, with its unusually frank discussions of the sexual politics of the marriage market and female erotic desires. Its vivid style and compelling subjects make Cometh Up as a Flower ideal for a modern syllabus. I was impressed by the exceptionally careful footnotes, the introduction that explains this novel's attitudes towards sexual, class, and racial issues, and the appendices about sensation fiction, Victorian medicine, and women's sexuality. This is an excellent edition of an exciting text." (Talia Schaffer )

"Subtitled (like Jane Eyre) 'An Autobiography' and startlingly frank about women's erotic desire and claims for independence when it was published in 1867, Rhoda Broughton's Cometh Up as a Flower has been undeservedly ignored ever since. Broadview's textually responsible new edition, with footnotes to explain the narrator's sometimes-racy slang, will absorb readers and provide a welcome resource for scholars." (Sally Mitchell ) --Sally Mitchell

From the Back Cover

An important sensation novel, Cometh Up as a Flower made Rhoda Broughton's reputation and fortune while also attracting harsh criticism. Nell LeStrange, the heroine, is torn between duty to her family and her own passion. What angered critics of the time was the heroine's frank discussion of her sexual attraction to her lover, and her dispassionate evaluation of loveless marriage as a form of self-sale. Broughton's lively, colloquial narrative voice, witty observations of contemporary manners, and sympathetic portrayal of the lives and feelings of young women, though no longer shocking, are as engaging now as they were to her readers of 1867. This Broadview Edition includes an extensive selection of appendices on the novel's reception (including a parody of Broughton), Victorian discourses on health and medicine, and contemporary attitudes towards women, marriage, and sexuality.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Broadview Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155111805X
• ISBN-13: 978-1551118055
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,594,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable heroine from a "novelist of revolt", June 27, 2010

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Patto (Vermont) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cometh Up As A Flower (Broadview Editions) (Paperback)

Rhoda Broughton was a queen of the circulating libraries in the late nineteenth century. This, her second novel (1867), was wildly controversial.

The Times praised its realistic love passages, fresh and racy style and quaint humor. The Athenaeum reviewer condemned its "mixture of slang and sensuality." Mrs. Oliphant, reviewing for Blackwood's, called the novel "disgusting." The Spectator admired the "exuberant mental life of the heroine."

But readers devoured it, and the book's immense popularity made Broughton's fortune. As a twenty-first-century reader, I could hardly believe my good luck in discovering such an original and accomplished writer.

As the story unfolds, the beautiful and passionate young heroine, Eleanor Lestrange, is under tremendous pressure to marry a man she doesn't love. The man she does love is a handsome dragoon without a sixpence.

However it's not the plot that makes this story so deeply satisfying. Rather it's Nell's quirky and forthright character and the rich emotional content of the narrative. Nell's touching love for her father, her struggles with her "she-devil" of a sister and her poignant repartee with her lover are masterfully presented. Equally engaging are Nell's unconventional reflections on morality, nature, society, death and religion.

Cometh Up as a Flower is a fictional autobiography, a literary form familiar to us from Jane Eyre. It's also a story of spiritual awakening, but this is so subtle a subplot that modern readers may not notice it. Broughton is dealing with profound social and moral themes here, but they never diminish the pleasure of the reader, who is swept along by the vivacious prose and mesmerized by the sheer force of Nell's unmaidenly personality.

I loved every minute of this book. Profuse thanks go to Broadview for publishing it, along with the excellent scholarly introduction and appendices. I would welcome additional Broadview reprints of Broughton's novels.