Customer Reviews

East Lynne (Oxford World's Classics)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked up an old copy of this Victorian novel in a used bookstore. It's not the sort of book I usually like much - the oft-told story of a woman seduced by a villain into leaving her happy home, and the shame, remorse, and misery that follow her downfall - but I found it very readable, I would even say a page-turner. Plenty of pathos and moralizing, as there generally is in these things, but much better than I expected.

If Danielle Steele had lived in the 1860s, East Lynne is probably the type of novel she would have written. Murder, disguise, adultery, divorce, illegitimate children--and oh, yeah, a horde of bats--are at the center of this sensationalist novel that was in and of itself a reflection of the time period in which it was written.

When William Vane, Earl of Mount Severn, dies, destroyed by debt, his daughter, the Lady Isabel, marries a country solicitor, Archibald Carlyle. Later, she abandons her husband and children in favor of a well-known rake, Francis Levison. When he abandons her and her illegitimate child, Lady Isabel becomes, in an ironic twist, governess at East Lynne.

It's a pretty far-fetched book, all things considering, and the foreshadowing is laid on pretty thick. In one scene, a horde of bats appears at East Lynne one night; next thing you know, the Lady Isabel's father is dead. The novel is full of people "screaming," "crying," "sobbing," and "raving," instead of simply "saying" things. It's pretty much all the melodrama you could ask for, and more.

Ellen Wood wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a good writer--at one point, when Francis Levison sneaks around in the bushes listening in on a conversation between Barbara Hare and Mr. Carlyle, the author describes him as "strolling down like a serpent behind the hedge." Oh, if only serpents could stroll! There are also minor inconsistencies; for example, when Mr. Carlyle marries for a second time, his sister moves back to her old home; but later on, the author informs her reader than Miss Carlyle abandoned her room upstairs for one downstairs. So this is definitely a book that's passed out of the canon because it's so quaint and dated. But it seems as though Ellen Wood sure knew how to titillate her Victorian readers.

Potboiler, purple prose, hyperbole... perhaps. Frankly, I found this book to be addictive in its plot twists, melodrama, and suspense. Upon publication, East Lynne was indeed hugely successful, sellling over a half a million copies by the turn of the century. Twenty years after this Victorian bestseller's first appearance in 1861, its author, Mrs. Henry [Ellen] Wood, managed to garner more votes than Shakespeare and Dickens combined as polled reader's 'favorite author'(based, one supposes almost entirely on the popularity of East Lynne). Personally, I found this now-forgotten suspense classic to be highly engaging, artfully plotted ~ and certainly, one of the finest sensation novels ever penned. Highly recommended for devotees of romantic suspense ~ and a must-read for fans of Wilkie Collins, M.E. Braddon ~ or even Dickens.

A contemporary of Wood's, a woman who was her fan, found her prosaic in her conversation and ideas, and that carries over in this novel which is too long and too slack. The story takes too long to catch fire and the characters simply don't have enough depth, though there are many touching and amusing moments. Wood is not a very good writer, not remotely in the league of Wilkie Collins of Elizabeth Braddon. When you read them, you want to read more of their oeuvre, having read one Wood novel, I'm done. I kept reading out of curiosity for she can come up with some entertaining plot twists, but there was less here than meets the eye. The introduction is thorough and fascinating, and objective; the notes are good (though sometimes too basic).

That's what they used to advertise in the days of barnstorming melodramas, and it became something of a catchphrase. The novel on which the perennial melodrama is based is actually a wonderful read, although terribly far-fetched; but perhaps this is what makes it fun. What is NOT fun is the unforgiving nature of its morality. Yes, we all know that sin must be punished -- but this poor woman is punished, and punished, and punished. And what was the point of giving the villain a Jewish name?