LONA MANNING
  • Home
  • Books
    • Shelley Novella
  • Research
    • About Shelley
    • Peterloo
    • Kitty Riddle
    • 18th C. love poetry
  • Jane Austen
  • Blog
  • About Me
    • Teaching Philosophy

CMP#113    Treading the Boards with Ann Ryley

6/30/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
​
Fanny took "up the volume which had been left on the table, and begin to acquaint herself with the play of which she had heard so much... she ran through it with an eagerness which was suspended only by intervals of astonishment... that it could be proposed and accepted in a private theatre! Agatha and Amelia appeared to her in their different ways so totally improper for home representation—the situation of one, and the language of the other, so unfit to be expressed by any woman of modesty, that she could hardly suppose her cousins [Maria and Julia] could be aware of what they were engaging in...                                                      -- Fanny Price reading Lover's Vows in Mansfield Park

CMP#113   Fanny Fitz-York​, part 5: Unexceptionable as to morals
PictureEdmund Kean as Macbeth
   ​   In previous posts, I've looked at the forgotten novel Fanny Fitz York (1818) in terms of its plot, its female characters. and the moral and political opinions the characters express. In this post, we're going to the theatre and dealing with some other bits and pieces.
         Lady Ann, the mother of the heroine, carefully safeguards her daughter's morals.  When they are invited to take in a play, Lady Ann asks if the actors are any good, then asks: "And the piece-- is it a moral one?” When she is assured it is “Unexceptionable,” she decides to take a box. “The young folks no doubt will be highly gratified, and if, as you say, the play is unexceptionable, improved. The drama, under proper restrictions, would not merely be an innocent amusement, but a very high source of edification…”
      ​   It's not surprising that Anne Ryley has opinions about the theatre. Her husband, S.W. Ryley, was an itinerant actor and comedian, and she herself trod the boards as a young wife. No doubt the scenes described in Fanny Fitz-York are based on Ann Ryley's real experiences playing in front of rowdy Georgian audiences.
     On this first trip to the theatre, young Fanny is enthralled by everything. She pays “close attention to the performance,” which draws the sarcastic attention of other theatre-goers, because “any attention to Shakespeare, or those whose acting is his brightest illustration, is an offence so barbarous, vulgar, and unfashionable, that it is universally rated a bore…” 
         Fanny and her friends go to the theatre and the opera frequently in
 Fanny Fitz-York, and some little incident always occurs. Author Ann Ryley has thoughts about noisy, inattentive theatre patrons...


Read More
0 Comments

CMP#112  Outspoken A__ R___y

6/29/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
If you want superb writing and amazing delineations of character, you can't top Jane Austen. If you want a female author of the Regency period who discusses slavery, the status of women, race and class, there are plenty of writers who were more explicit on these issues. Trying to re-imagine Austen into being someone she's not makes no sense to me.

CMP#112 Fanny Fitz-York, part 4: Who's Outspoken? A____  R_____y, That's Who
    It used to be the conventional wisdom that Jane Austen didn't express political opinions in her novels—that if you read Austen, you'd barely notice there was a war going on. Now, modern scholars argue that she does express political opinions, but they are oblique and subversive.
     Austen had to be covert, they explain, because opinions were dangerous in general and opinions from women were not acceptable.
    In Austen's time, you could get sent to prison for writing or publishing anything deemed too critical of the King or the government, as I've mentioned before. Some scholars have pointed to this fact when suggesting that Austen's novels contained veiled allusions to the events of her day—veiled, that is, because she had to protect herself from reprisals.
       Let’s talk about being courageous. Let's talk about not writing obliquely. Fanny Fitz-York, as I mentioned, was published in the same month as Northanger Abbey. Its author, Ann Ryley (1760-1823)​, didn't pull any punches. Ryley, like Jane Austen, detested the Prince Regent and supported his estranged wife Princess Caroline. Unlike Austen, Ryley didn't confine her thoughts to her private life and correspondence. Ryley also swings hard against the prime minister and his cabinet, some Royal Dukes, the war against Napoleon and government in general. Let's see some examples:

Read More
0 Comments

CMP#111: Satirical or Seditious? Fanny Fitz-York

6/28/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
“The reader fond of unravelling plots may gratify his—or her—curiousity at some old-fashioned, superseded circulating library, where Fanny Fitz York may yet be consulted…” 
                                       -- Richard Wright Proctor, Memorials of Bygone Manchester, 1880
CMP#111  Fanny Fitz-York, Part 3: Satirical or Seditious? Mrs. Bloomfield
PictureOutspoken widows
     It's Ann Ryley week here at Clutching My Pearls. In which I'm examining the novel  Fanny Fitz-York, Heiress of Tremorne (1818), by Ann Ryley (1760-1823)​. 
    Richard Wright Proctor, quoted above, described Ann Ryley's writing style as "engaging." I agree; in fact, I find Ryley's style more engaging than the actual plot of 
Fanny Fitz York, which abounds with the usual amazing coincidences which you find in novels of this sort. 
​     Mostly, though, I am amazed at Ryley's outspoken radical opinions, which Proctor does not mention.
      Proctor is the only person I've found who discussed
 Fanny Fitz York, but that was half-a-century after it was published. It received no book reviews when it came out in 1818. I think Ryley's novel deserves some scholarly attention, particularly from academics who tell us that women novelists of this era were constrained from giving their opinions because of the social and political climate of the times. In the previous post, I shared some of the opinions of the heroine and her mother around the sexual double-standard and the harsh penalties society meted out to fallen women. But there's still more, much more, to be shared about Ryley's political views.


Read More
0 Comments

CMP#110  Of Wives and Prostitutes

6/27/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Clutching My Pearls is my ongoing blog series about my take on Jane Austen’s beliefs and ideas, as based on her novels.  Click here for the first in the series.  ​I’ve also been blogging about now-obscure female authors of the long 18th century. For more, click "Authoresses" on the menu at right. This is the second post about Ann Ryley (1760-1823) and her forgotten novel, Fanny Fitz-York (1818).

CMP#110:  Fanny Fitz York, part 2: Outspoken Women, Conventional Morality
Picture
​   In my last post, I introduced a long-neglected novel, Fanny Fitz-York: the Heiress of Tremorne (1818).  Fanny Fitz-York is very much female-centered. There are love interests, of course, and there is a hero, but for much of the novel, we've no idea which one he is. There are also two older male characters, the curate and the kindly old advisor, but really, they are only necessary to the plot because they are escorts. Without them the female characters could not, with propriety, move from "A" to "B" as needed. There is also a villain, but the driving energy of the story comes from the supporting cast of female characters.
    In her preface, author Ann Ryley makes the 
pro forma disclaimer--very typical for the times--that she would rather be accused of lack of wit or invention, rather “than hear myself accused of shocking the nicest delicacy by a hint or an innuendo, that could raise a blush in the cheek of modesty.”
    Yet, Ryley takes us to places Jane Austen never did—to a courtroom, to a bordello in London, to prison cells. Ryley shows poverty and destitution on the streets of London. And the curate’s sister Julia brings “everlasting disgrace” on her family by becoming a prostitute.       


Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous

    RSS Feed

    About the author:

    More about me here. My earlier posts (prior to June 2017) are about my time as a teacher of ESL in China,(just click on "China" in the menu below.) more recent posts focus on my writing, as well as Jane Austen and the long 18th century. Welcome!


    Categories

    All
    18th Century Novel Tropes
    Authoresses
    Book Reviews
    China
    China: Sightseeing
    Clutching My Pearls
    East & West Indies & Slavery
    Emma
    Humour
    Jane Austen
    Laowai At Large
    Mansfield Park
    Northanger Abbey
    Parody
    Persuasion
    Postmodern Pushback
    Pride Prejudice
    Religion In Austen
    Sanditon
    Sense And Sensibility
    Shelley
    Teaching

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    December 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    January 2017
    April 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014


    RSS Feed

    © Lona Manning 2022
Proudly powered by Weebly