Customer Reviews

The Fate of Fenella

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

 

 

The magazine business was fiercely competitive in the 1890s. And readers addicted to sensation fiction were always looking for new thrills. In this volatile literary marketplace, London publisher Joseph Snell Wood came up with a great promotion: The Fate of Fenella.

There would be twenty-four chapters, each written by a different well-known novelist, half of the contributors men and half women. There would be no pre-conceived plot. Each author would have to deal with the plot as she or he found it - and move it forward.

Not surprisingly, with an arrangement like this, the story is wholly improbably, every chapter building up to a climax and ending with a cliffhanger. The reader is treated to murder, bigamy, adultery, fraud, kidnapping, hypnotic trances, near fatal illnesses and a shipwreck - all involving persons in the highest society.

The plot kicks off with a marriage in ruins. Lord Francis Onslow has been having an affair with a French femme fatale of vicious character. His wife Fenella retaliated by engaging in flagrant (though innocent) flirtations. What happens next? Just about everything you could imagine.

Contemporary critics either praised the book as "an ingenious success" or condemned it as "a literary crime." I found the admittedly absurd story surprisingly fun and readable. Most of the once popular authors are unknown today, yet the quality of their writing is quite good.

Short bios of the writers are included, and add to the charm of the book. One overworked author, for example, had a nervous breakdown directly after submitting her chapter. And the well-written introduction puts the novel nicely in context. There are some interesting reflections on how the storyline tied in with contemporary attitudes to "the woman question."

I'd recommend the book to anyone fascinated by Victorian times and literature.