| This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. The introductory post is here. My "six simple questions for academics" post is here. |
CMP# 177 Eva, the heroine who runs out of her own novel and disappears for quite a while
Imagine that you have written your first novel and it’s been accepted by Minerva Press, which is, let’s be honest, not a prestigious publisher but still, your novel will be published! And then it does it get published and there’s…. the wrong author’s name on the title page? I don’t know how this happened, but in later years, an authoress named Amelia Beauclerc claimed authorship of this novel, not Emma De Lisle. And why is the book called Eva of Cambria? The character Eva is absent from most of the book and she lives in France and Spain, not Wales.
We don't meet Eva and there is no mention of her until 185 pages into the story. We start with the history of another family; an older man named Percy Eddington, who never married because he was disfigured in a carriage accident. He lives with his spinster sister Helena, and --crash! What was that?
That was another carriage accident. This one brings a distressed widow and a lovely young lady to their door. Laura becomes Percy’s bride, in a May/September pairing. The Eddingtons are happy, devout, and kind to their tenants; good-hearted Welsh people who like to drink to excess whenever Mrs. Eddington presents her husband with a child. They have three children: Julius, Horatio, and Helen. Synopsis and spoilers follow...
We don't meet Eva and there is no mention of her until 185 pages into the story. We start with the history of another family; an older man named Percy Eddington, who never married because he was disfigured in a carriage accident. He lives with his spinster sister Helena, and --crash! What was that?
That was another carriage accident. This one brings a distressed widow and a lovely young lady to their door. Laura becomes Percy’s bride, in a May/September pairing. The Eddingtons are happy, devout, and kind to their tenants; good-hearted Welsh people who like to drink to excess whenever Mrs. Eddington presents her husband with a child. They have three children: Julius, Horatio, and Helen. Synopsis and spoilers follow...
More Meet Cutes
Julius and Horatio go to Eton, where they rescue a girl named Arabella. First, Julius rescues her from a rabid dog, then they rescue her from a panderer who is trying to force her into concubinage. Then they head home with a family servant when they rescue our titular heroine, Eva, who is stuck at the bottom of an overturned carriage with a fat French governess standing on top of her. Eva is half-French, very young and very frightened. After subduing the horses and rendering first aid to everyone, there is nothing more two teenage boys can do, so they leave Eva and her governess with a doctor and his wife.
Because of the machinations of an evil (now deceased) step-mother, Eva knows nothing of her parentage. She despises her vulgar and ignorant governess, and fears that she is not being conveyed to the arms of a fond parent, but being taken by Madame La Botte to be given to a nobleman as his concubine. She flees in the dead of night and most fortunately is rescued and taken up by a passing couple, the Byrams, who also rescue her from an over-amorous soldier who enters her bedroom at the inn. The Byrams grow so fond of her they informally adopt her. Mr. Byram is a merchant and the family go overseas and sail out of the book for many chapters.
Julius leaves school, joins the army and goes to America (the book is set at the outset of the American Revolution) where he finds that a corporal's wife is none other than the happily married and respectable Arabella, the girl he rescued at Eton.
Back in England, the rest of the family goes on a tour around the country. Mr. Eddington by chance learns that they are near the home of an old acquaintance of his, Lord Eggerfield, who is twice widowed and living like a hermit while his estate sinks into Gothic ruin. No, that’s not a ghost, it’s Lord Eggerfield, traipsing around the halls at night. And those low moans are not the sound of an imprisoned woman--oh! wait, they are the sounds of an imprisoned woman! it’s the French governess, Madame La Botte, whom Lord Eggerfield blames for the disappearance of his daughter Eva. Mr. Eddington politely points out that it’s illegal to imprison people in England like this. Madame La Botte, who genuinely does not know what happened to Eva, is allowed to return to France.
Meanwhile Horatio rescues a reduced gentlewoman and her daughter Clara from a raging bull, and he falls like a ton of bricks for Clara. His parents aren’t the type to object to a girl just because she has no money, but Horatio and Clara are both so young, that Mr. Eddington feels it would be best if Horatio went off on a tour of Scotland to test his constancy.
Julius and Horatio go to Eton, where they rescue a girl named Arabella. First, Julius rescues her from a rabid dog, then they rescue her from a panderer who is trying to force her into concubinage. Then they head home with a family servant when they rescue our titular heroine, Eva, who is stuck at the bottom of an overturned carriage with a fat French governess standing on top of her. Eva is half-French, very young and very frightened. After subduing the horses and rendering first aid to everyone, there is nothing more two teenage boys can do, so they leave Eva and her governess with a doctor and his wife.
Because of the machinations of an evil (now deceased) step-mother, Eva knows nothing of her parentage. She despises her vulgar and ignorant governess, and fears that she is not being conveyed to the arms of a fond parent, but being taken by Madame La Botte to be given to a nobleman as his concubine. She flees in the dead of night and most fortunately is rescued and taken up by a passing couple, the Byrams, who also rescue her from an over-amorous soldier who enters her bedroom at the inn. The Byrams grow so fond of her they informally adopt her. Mr. Byram is a merchant and the family go overseas and sail out of the book for many chapters.
Julius leaves school, joins the army and goes to America (the book is set at the outset of the American Revolution) where he finds that a corporal's wife is none other than the happily married and respectable Arabella, the girl he rescued at Eton.
Back in England, the rest of the family goes on a tour around the country. Mr. Eddington by chance learns that they are near the home of an old acquaintance of his, Lord Eggerfield, who is twice widowed and living like a hermit while his estate sinks into Gothic ruin. No, that’s not a ghost, it’s Lord Eggerfield, traipsing around the halls at night. And those low moans are not the sound of an imprisoned woman--oh! wait, they are the sounds of an imprisoned woman! it’s the French governess, Madame La Botte, whom Lord Eggerfield blames for the disappearance of his daughter Eva. Mr. Eddington politely points out that it’s illegal to imprison people in England like this. Madame La Botte, who genuinely does not know what happened to Eva, is allowed to return to France.
Meanwhile Horatio rescues a reduced gentlewoman and her daughter Clara from a raging bull, and he falls like a ton of bricks for Clara. His parents aren’t the type to object to a girl just because she has no money, but Horatio and Clara are both so young, that Mr. Eddington feels it would be best if Horatio went off on a tour of Scotland to test his constancy.
Cartoon of 14-year-old Lady Georgiana Gordon (detail) A Real P____n?
At this point the author introduces a femme fatale, and because she is called Lady G_____a G____n, I concluded this must be a real person. Since the book was not reviewed when it came out, I have no confirmation, but I think it's Lady Georgiana Gordon, whose mother was a famous Scottish hostess and socialite, even though the dates don't match up. I haven’t seen a real person used in a fictional love triangle this way before. Horatio and Lady G____a meet, not beside an overturned carriage, but at a ball, where Lady G____a does her seductive “tambourine dance.”
Lady G_____a's mother the Duchess invites Horatio to her many entertainments. They speak of a pleasure cruise on the lake, and I was expecting Horatio to have to fish Lady G____a out of the water, but that never happens. Even without being rescued by him, Lady G_____a develops a crush on Horatio, who does not have the finesse to drop his prior commitment to Clara into the conversation. While disapproving of her antics (he thinks that he will never allow his daughters to do likewise), he is still powerfully attracted to her. One night the other men get Horatio roaring drunk, and he ends up kissing Lady G_____a in her boudoir. Horrified at what he has done, he flees back to his parents' house and is scrambling into the window when he is mistaken for a burglar and shot by the gamekeeper. Luckily, the wound is not fatal. When Clara is reunited with Horatio, she is so happy that she retreats, like a good Austen heroine: “a couple of hours spent alone will bring me to a proper recollection of myself; I am now all tumult, confused, and even doubtful of the possibility of such complete felicity.”
Julius and Horatio's younger sister Helen is wooed and won by a Colonel Horace Walpole, visiting on a quick trip from the American campaign.
At this point the author introduces a femme fatale, and because she is called Lady G_____a G____n, I concluded this must be a real person. Since the book was not reviewed when it came out, I have no confirmation, but I think it's Lady Georgiana Gordon, whose mother was a famous Scottish hostess and socialite, even though the dates don't match up. I haven’t seen a real person used in a fictional love triangle this way before. Horatio and Lady G____a meet, not beside an overturned carriage, but at a ball, where Lady G____a does her seductive “tambourine dance.”
Lady G_____a's mother the Duchess invites Horatio to her many entertainments. They speak of a pleasure cruise on the lake, and I was expecting Horatio to have to fish Lady G____a out of the water, but that never happens. Even without being rescued by him, Lady G_____a develops a crush on Horatio, who does not have the finesse to drop his prior commitment to Clara into the conversation. While disapproving of her antics (he thinks that he will never allow his daughters to do likewise), he is still powerfully attracted to her. One night the other men get Horatio roaring drunk, and he ends up kissing Lady G_____a in her boudoir. Horrified at what he has done, he flees back to his parents' house and is scrambling into the window when he is mistaken for a burglar and shot by the gamekeeper. Luckily, the wound is not fatal. When Clara is reunited with Horatio, she is so happy that she retreats, like a good Austen heroine: “a couple of hours spent alone will bring me to a proper recollection of myself; I am now all tumult, confused, and even doubtful of the possibility of such complete felicity.”
Julius and Horatio's younger sister Helen is wooed and won by a Colonel Horace Walpole, visiting on a quick trip from the American campaign.
Name inspiration? Horatio "Horace" Walpole, (1717–1797) father of the Gothic novel Julius and some Coincidences
Julius gets badly injured in the war in America, and the ship on which he is invalided home with another officer is captured by the French. Julius and his friend Manners are paroled (meaning they give their word of honour as officers and gentlemen that they won’t escape) and given into the custody of an English merchant living in Cadiz, none other than Mr. Byram. Mr. and Mrs. Byram and Eva and their niece have been living abroad all these years. Col Manners was the drunken soldier who terrified Eva back in England in the inn, but neither the Byrams nor Eva recognize him. And he has reformed his character, thanks to Julius. Manners falls for the Byram’s niece Harriet, and Julius is entranced with Eva whom he recognizes as the girl he rescued from the carriage accident years ago (though he says nothing). He suspects she must be Lord Eddington’s missing daughter, whom he’s learned about in family letters. So what is she doing here in Cadiz? What has she been up to since she ran away? Is she a fallen woman?
After everyone is stranded in the woods because of a carriage accident, and Eva clings to him in fright, Julius can hardly restrain his feelings: “were it not for the unaccountable mystery about her, he felt that he could love her beyond measure…. Her touch had magic in it: but she might have clasped those arms about some other! Horror and disgust followed the thought.”
Finally, Julius openly questions Eva as to what she's been up to since she disappeared, and while she is briefly astonished and offended, they manage to sort things out and he proposes. But wait! Eva is French and therefore a Catholic. No worries, Mrs. Byram has converted her. Eva “read her renunciation of Popish errors." Eva learns she is Lord Eggerfield's daughter and an heiress and she ran away in error, but really, she was better off growing up with the Byrams, because her father is weird.
Julius and his friend are exchanged for French officers and they go home, bringing their affianced sweethearts with them (and Mrs. Byram as chaperone, of course). The last few chapters see them--and everyone else--married, even Madame La Botte.
Julius gets badly injured in the war in America, and the ship on which he is invalided home with another officer is captured by the French. Julius and his friend Manners are paroled (meaning they give their word of honour as officers and gentlemen that they won’t escape) and given into the custody of an English merchant living in Cadiz, none other than Mr. Byram. Mr. and Mrs. Byram and Eva and their niece have been living abroad all these years. Col Manners was the drunken soldier who terrified Eva back in England in the inn, but neither the Byrams nor Eva recognize him. And he has reformed his character, thanks to Julius. Manners falls for the Byram’s niece Harriet, and Julius is entranced with Eva whom he recognizes as the girl he rescued from the carriage accident years ago (though he says nothing). He suspects she must be Lord Eddington’s missing daughter, whom he’s learned about in family letters. So what is she doing here in Cadiz? What has she been up to since she ran away? Is she a fallen woman?
After everyone is stranded in the woods because of a carriage accident, and Eva clings to him in fright, Julius can hardly restrain his feelings: “were it not for the unaccountable mystery about her, he felt that he could love her beyond measure…. Her touch had magic in it: but she might have clasped those arms about some other! Horror and disgust followed the thought.”
Finally, Julius openly questions Eva as to what she's been up to since she disappeared, and while she is briefly astonished and offended, they manage to sort things out and he proposes. But wait! Eva is French and therefore a Catholic. No worries, Mrs. Byram has converted her. Eva “read her renunciation of Popish errors." Eva learns she is Lord Eggerfield's daughter and an heiress and she ran away in error, but really, she was better off growing up with the Byrams, because her father is weird.
Julius and his friend are exchanged for French officers and they go home, bringing their affianced sweethearts with them (and Mrs. Byram as chaperone, of course). The last few chapters see them--and everyone else--married, even Madame La Botte.
Features of interest:
The dramatic parts of the story are told in a fairly laid-back style, and are leavened by comic subplots. Twice, servants impersonating their mistresses elope with fortune-hunting men, thus thwarting the designs of the fortune-hunter.
No mention of slavery in this novel, and the only mention of the West Indies is as a place that soldiers wish to avoid being sent to (the climate was deadly to Englishmen). Slavery and chains are used in the conventional way of describing passion and love, as in “his lovely French enslaver.”
Lord Eggerfield mentions that his missing daughter has a birthmark, but I think the author inserted this detail into the story and never made use of it. Since Eva remembered Madame La Botte, her identity was never in question.
The book is written in 1811, long after the Americans won the Revolutionary War, but we are given the confident point of view of Julius, that the rabble will soon be suppressed. “Alas! My son,” his father thinks. “you write like a brave soldier, but not as a profound politician.”
The book is part travelogue, including a description of quarterly assizes at Newcastle. "They reached Newcastle… the Judges entered the second day after their arrival, and all was bustle, hurry, and confusion—bustle to those who take an early seat in the court, and are fond of trials—hurry to the same people who have to dine, dress, and prepare for a ball—confusion to the dismayed culprits, who stand in suspension between life and death, before clamorous counsellors and jurymen, and a gazing multitude. There is certainly something approaching to the savage, in the gaiety of the world at these awful periods; the Indian war-dance, in the sacrifice of their prisoners, bears some analogy to such meetings.”
In contrast to the many comic portraits of merchants in novels as being vulgar and pushy, Julius gives a spirited defense of them: “No character can be more respectable than that of merchant. Are they not the support of the first nation in the world? Do they not, with a true English spirit, subscribe to reward the relicts [widows] of the warrior, who has spent his last vital blood in the service of his country?”
The real Lady Georgiana Gordon married an English nobleman. She and her mother were quite colourful characters. When Eva of Cambria came out, Lady Georgiana was married and the mother of five children. But the book was set thirty years earlier, in fact when Lady Georgiana was a glint in her father's eye.
The dramatic parts of the story are told in a fairly laid-back style, and are leavened by comic subplots. Twice, servants impersonating their mistresses elope with fortune-hunting men, thus thwarting the designs of the fortune-hunter.
No mention of slavery in this novel, and the only mention of the West Indies is as a place that soldiers wish to avoid being sent to (the climate was deadly to Englishmen). Slavery and chains are used in the conventional way of describing passion and love, as in “his lovely French enslaver.”
Lord Eggerfield mentions that his missing daughter has a birthmark, but I think the author inserted this detail into the story and never made use of it. Since Eva remembered Madame La Botte, her identity was never in question.
The book is written in 1811, long after the Americans won the Revolutionary War, but we are given the confident point of view of Julius, that the rabble will soon be suppressed. “Alas! My son,” his father thinks. “you write like a brave soldier, but not as a profound politician.”
The book is part travelogue, including a description of quarterly assizes at Newcastle. "They reached Newcastle… the Judges entered the second day after their arrival, and all was bustle, hurry, and confusion—bustle to those who take an early seat in the court, and are fond of trials—hurry to the same people who have to dine, dress, and prepare for a ball—confusion to the dismayed culprits, who stand in suspension between life and death, before clamorous counsellors and jurymen, and a gazing multitude. There is certainly something approaching to the savage, in the gaiety of the world at these awful periods; the Indian war-dance, in the sacrifice of their prisoners, bears some analogy to such meetings.”
In contrast to the many comic portraits of merchants in novels as being vulgar and pushy, Julius gives a spirited defense of them: “No character can be more respectable than that of merchant. Are they not the support of the first nation in the world? Do they not, with a true English spirit, subscribe to reward the relicts [widows] of the warrior, who has spent his last vital blood in the service of his country?”
The real Lady Georgiana Gordon married an English nobleman. She and her mother were quite colourful characters. When Eva of Cambria came out, Lady Georgiana was married and the mother of five children. But the book was set thirty years earlier, in fact when Lady Georgiana was a glint in her father's eye.
Bing AI image conception of Amelia Beauclerc About the Author
Amelia Beauclerc has created a large cast of characters, from nobility to servants. The heroines are all of peerless virtue but other female characters have flaws and foibles. She's not so talented with dialogue. The main characters all sound the same.
We also have a comic reference to how Madame La Botte's husband beats her "soundly," and a minor character, a woman who is psychologically disciplined into being a proper wife. Her husband was "determined to make a total reform in her Ladyship; and the preliminary article was to be, that he should be master. He was too much of a gentleman to think of using his wife ill; but, as a gentleman, he determined she should respect him, and to be firm against arts, hysterics, or blandishments.”
Despite the title, the protagonists in this novel are the men of the Eddington family, the father and his sons Julius and Horatio. The author is interested in war, travel and horses. We have scenes set at Eton, in male drinking parties, and on board ship. One could hypothesize that "Amelia Beauclerc" was a dude.
The Orlando database of Women's Writing says that Beauclerc's novels were of "oddly varying quality," Possibly, "Amelia Beauclerc" was an all-purpose pseudonym used by the publisher for novels from various aspiring writers. The other pseudonym, Emma De Lisle, was used by Emma Parker, of Wales.
Amelia Beauclerc has created a large cast of characters, from nobility to servants. The heroines are all of peerless virtue but other female characters have flaws and foibles. She's not so talented with dialogue. The main characters all sound the same.
We also have a comic reference to how Madame La Botte's husband beats her "soundly," and a minor character, a woman who is psychologically disciplined into being a proper wife. Her husband was "determined to make a total reform in her Ladyship; and the preliminary article was to be, that he should be master. He was too much of a gentleman to think of using his wife ill; but, as a gentleman, he determined she should respect him, and to be firm against arts, hysterics, or blandishments.”
Despite the title, the protagonists in this novel are the men of the Eddington family, the father and his sons Julius and Horatio. The author is interested in war, travel and horses. We have scenes set at Eton, in male drinking parties, and on board ship. One could hypothesize that "Amelia Beauclerc" was a dude.
The Orlando database of Women's Writing says that Beauclerc's novels were of "oddly varying quality," Possibly, "Amelia Beauclerc" was an all-purpose pseudonym used by the publisher for novels from various aspiring writers. The other pseudonym, Emma De Lisle, was used by Emma Parker, of Wales.
 Did men and women only meet because of carriage accidents and runaway animals? Historian Rory Muir has a new book out about marriage and courtship in the time of Jane Austen. This article from Human Progress points out that as human prosperity rises, people stop laughing at the idea of wife-beating: Previous post: Elfrida, the martyr to rectitude Next post: Harriet Smith's reading part one |
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