Customer Reviews

The Making of a Marchioness (Persephone Book)

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This is a brief but pleasant romance, occasionally sold under the title of "Emily Fox-Seton".
Emily is thirty-four years old, of excellent family background with a good "woman's education". Unfortunately, Emily is penniless and has to make her own living. Fortunately, Emily is practical, intelligent and extremely good natured. She has been dealt a poor hand but cheerfully makes the best of it.
Emily survives by Being Useful to noble and upper middle class ladies for a modest remuneration. Emily locates and recruits reliable servants, performs secretarial duties and runs errands for these patrons.
As the story opens, Lady Maria Bayne has invited Emily to her country estate to help with her annual "early August party". This year, the houseparty's draw will be the wealthy, widowed Marquis of Wanderhurst who is looking for a wife.
The reader is introduced to the potential contenders to the title of Marchioness. The American heiress, Cora Brooke, who has everything money can buy, excepting a Noble title. The beautiful debutante success of the last Social Season, Lady Agatha Slade, who must marry to save her family from absolute penury. And the widowed writer, clever Mrs Ralph, ready for another success. The hunt is on and it is all very entertaining.
One of interesting sidelights into this rarefied society is how much more freedom and self-determination is available to self-employed Emily when compared with the constricted and confined lives of the heiress and the debutante.
Recommended.

Though famous for her children't books nowadays, this is one of Burnett's books for grown-ups. It is a sort of cheesy romance, but oh is it fun! Republished by Persephone Books, an independant published in London, this book is well worth purchasing: you'll read it again and again whenever you're looking for a fun, light, and well-written book on a rainy day.

Written a hundred years ago, there is a sort of paternalistic-bordering-on-rascist attitude towards the Indian characters, but I don't think it's anything too egregious.

When you've read this book, read "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," by Winifred Watson and also published by Persephone.

I bought this book and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst (the sequel) just before my wedding. They are charming "shopgirl novels" in the nicest possible way. Poverty and difficulty at the start, marriage love and riches at the end. A lovely glimpse at another time.

Emily Fox-Seton is poor--not desperately so, but genteel. She's a simple soul really, content in the simple pleasures of life, hating the life she was born into but not knowing that she deserves much better. For work, she takes on odd jobs for wealthy women. When Lady Maria invites her to a country house-party, Emily meets the marquis, Lord Walderhurst, who, to her surprise, asks her to marry him. What follows is "the making of a marchioness," as Emily adjusts to her new life. There, she meets two of Lord Walderhurst's relatives--his disgruntled heir presumptive, Captain Osborn, and wife Hester, just back from India.

Frances Hodgson Burnett is better known for some of her other books (including The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy), but The Making of a Marchioness is a fine novel as well. Emily is a bit too perfect, sometimes, but she's a sweet woman, blissfully ignorant of the bad feelings and thoughts of those around her. You just can't help but to like her. According to the preface, the author called Emily "a sort of Cinderella... with big feet instead of little ones." And indeed, this is a kind of Cinderella story. Walderhurst isn't a Prince Charming, though--he married not so much for love as for comfort, and he's taciturn at the best of times. Still, he loves Emily in his own strange way.

This is a story that tries so hard not to be sentimental that it is, in a way. Like some of her other books, The Making of a Marchioness is about class--the pretension or lack thereof to enter into high society. It's also, on a way, about contrasts; nobody could be more different than Emily than Hester, and nobody could be more different from the very English maid Jane Cupp than Hester's ayah Ameerah. The novel was published in 1901, and in some ways it suffers from late Victorian and Edwardian prejudices towards Indians (there's even an Uncle Tom's Cabin reference in there somewhere). But if you can overlook this, this really is a charming little book.

This is Persephone #29

Emily Fox-Seton is a thirty five year old woman who is poor, and works for a living by doing odd jobs and running errands for wealthy patrons. She is a simple creature, not overly witty, or smart but one of the kindest creations in literature. She truly has accepted her lot in life and never expects to rise above society's expectations of her. When someone shows her an ounce of kindness she devours it as one of life's rare and simple pleasures. When Emily travels to stay at the summer estate of Lady Maria Bayne one of the people Emily works for she is overly excited about having his golden opportunity. Lady Maria takes advantage of Emily's kind hearted nature and has her constantly running errands and organizing parties for her. While in Lady Maria's company Emily falls under the attention of the Marquis of Walderhurst, a fifty something widower considered by most young woman as a very worthy catch. Most of the other beautiful young woman at the estate "set their caps" at him. But Walderhurst is not a man who wants to remarry especially to some of the silly witted creatures he meets who would expect their husband to entertain them constantly. So the plot continues...

This is an excellent story, a true pleasure to reading. The writing is phenomenal, the story is so classic. It is good on so many levels. Others have categorized it as a Cinderella story and for the first part it is, but it is so great because the main characters are not the overly romantic type. Emily is described as a big woman not beautiful only handsome. She is not witty or even very bright but her best charm is her honest, kind nature. Readers might find her dull at times but you can't help yourself by liking her and routing for her. The Marquis of Walderhurst is also a dull man, he is not young, handsome, overly brilliant or romantic, but I loved his progression in the story and it made me like him all the more as a hero. He starts by liking Emily and realizing her worth in his life and than finds himself becoming attached to her, it makes him such an honest hero and a true Victorian gentleman.

I also liked this book for its interesting views on marriage and for the things that the Frances Hodgson Burnett alludes to but does not say. We have such contrasting relationships in the book between Emily and her Marquis compared to the marriage of the Osborns that is suttle but makes a strong critique on marriage. I really think that this book has become one of my favorites and I am so glad that Persephone books decided to reprint it.

First, this book contains both Making of a Marchioness and THe Methods of Lady Walderhurst its sequel in one volume. Making of a Marchioness was actually mentioned by the ladies in Pursuit of Love, which I just finished reading, apparently Nancy Mitford was a great fan.
The first book is the story of the very poor Emily Fox Seton, who is advancing in age and is considered a prime candidate for old maid forever condemned to pinching pennies and living off the kindness of relatives. At the home of a friend she meets Lord Walderhurst a most available widower who of course is the target of many mothers trying to marry off their daughters. Lord Walderhurst is not at all interested in marriage but slowly begins to notice Emily, specifically her kindness and common sense. You can guess where the story leads! This is very romantic, but not in a sappy way, the hero and heroine are so opposite of what you would normally expect which makes the story so engaging.
Its sequel, the Methods of Lady Walderhurst is a bit of a saga covering the early married life of the couple. Lord Walderhurst's heir (if Emily does not have a son) shows up with his Indian wife and her mysterious maid and create a nice little saga with a very touching ending of redemption and friendship.
This is a lovely story, very well told, with great insight and a very uplifting conclusion. Highly recommended.

Lovely, engaging story. Well written, but poorly formatted. Given the type of errors- I would guess it was scanned and converted then the individual tasked with reformatting gave up about a third of the way in.

I am shocked that I had never heard of this book until just a few weeks ago. What a delightful read! Previously I had only read the author's books for children, and, like many people, I didn't even know about her novels for adults until now.

The book was originally published in two parts: the first is a "Cinderella Story" of sorts, and the second is a drama/suspense/romance. It's filled with interesting characters, and moments that will make you smile and/or sigh, bite your nails, and keep you turning pages. And, like most books of the time, there is nothing offensive. Hallelujah!

Actually, I'm quite surprised that BBC hasn't made this into a mini-series. It's perfectly suited to it!

I adore "the Secret Garden" and "the Little Princess", so I was excited to see this book for adults by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was ok, but not great. It features a plucky heroine, but there's just not very much character development or attention to detail.

Very happy to obtain a copy of this book. Could have taken months haunting used book stores. In very good condition, esp considering it's age.