| 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. Spoilers abound in my my books reviews, and I discuss 18th-century attitudes which I do not necessarily endorse. |
CMP#260 Book Review: The Miser Married (1813), by Catherine Hutton
The Miser's Prayer (1801), Rowlandson In 1822, writer Catherine Hutton praised Jane Austen in one of her letters: “her novels are pictures of common life, something like mine, but much more varied; and her character is either something like mine, or what I would wish mine to be.” As a biographer of Hutton notes, the “comparison is apt…. [Hutton] share[s] Austen’s self-described attention to ‘3 or 4 families in a Country village'.”
The Miser Married, a novel in letters, or epistolary novel, tells the story of what happens when a lively mother-and-daughter team move into a country village and become neighbours to a confirmed miser and misanthrope. Mrs. Mereval and her daughter Catherine are joined by Mrs. Mereval’s niece Emily. We meet the miser through his letters to his man of business, then the lively Catherine takes over with letters to a friend. We learn that she had expected to inherit her late father’s fortune, but a long-lost relative has returned from the East Indies; as a male, he inherits the baronetcy, but he is also entitled to the estate? They are in suspense as the matter works its way through the courts.
To add to their worries, Catherine and her mother, in anticipation of her inheritance, allowed themselves to live beyond their means and get into debt. They have fled their creditors, which is why they are in this quiet village, and in fact they are living under an assumed name. Their real name is Montgomery...
The Miser Married, a novel in letters, or epistolary novel, tells the story of what happens when a lively mother-and-daughter team move into a country village and become neighbours to a confirmed miser and misanthrope. Mrs. Mereval and her daughter Catherine are joined by Mrs. Mereval’s niece Emily. We meet the miser through his letters to his man of business, then the lively Catherine takes over with letters to a friend. We learn that she had expected to inherit her late father’s fortune, but a long-lost relative has returned from the East Indies; as a male, he inherits the baronetcy, but he is also entitled to the estate? They are in suspense as the matter works its way through the courts.
To add to their worries, Catherine and her mother, in anticipation of her inheritance, allowed themselves to live beyond their means and get into debt. They have fled their creditors, which is why they are in this quiet village, and in fact they are living under an assumed name. Their real name is Montgomery...
Mrs. Montgomery spent herself into a pile of debt A Damocles of debt
So we don’t have a “picture of perfection” heroine here. Financial disaster is hanging over Catherine’s head if she loses the lawsuit but despite her worries she remains witty and cheerful. The author’s innovation here is to take the saucy sidekick who converses with “ease and vivacity” and switch her from second-banana status to main heroine, while relegating the “timid, gentle, retiring” and very virtuous heroine (Emily) to the sidekick position. This is what Jane Austen did in Pride and Prejudice.
Mr. Winterdale, the miser, is unsociable, so the only other “genteel” family in the country village is the not-very-genteel clergyman and his wife. Mrs. Thacker is a wealthy fishmonger’s daughter, meaning she is loud, fat, and vulgar, with a cockney accent. The cast of characters is rounded out by Mr. Strong, a nephew on an extended visit with his aunt and uncle. Strong is very weak and effeminate—I think we are looking at a standard comic type here--but he regards himself as an irresistible catch. He is attracted to the gentle cousin Emily.
Chance brings the miser together with the ladies when he breaks his leg while passing their house. Apparently broken legs were treated in those days by immobilizing the patient for weeks, so the miser becomes Mrs. Mereval’s house guest—he can’t even be taken to his own house on a stretcher--and by the time he’s well enough to move, his son Henry is in love with Emily, Catherine is in love with Henry's college friend Mr. Montgomery, and the miser is engaged to Catherine’s mother.
So we don’t have a “picture of perfection” heroine here. Financial disaster is hanging over Catherine’s head if she loses the lawsuit but despite her worries she remains witty and cheerful. The author’s innovation here is to take the saucy sidekick who converses with “ease and vivacity” and switch her from second-banana status to main heroine, while relegating the “timid, gentle, retiring” and very virtuous heroine (Emily) to the sidekick position. This is what Jane Austen did in Pride and Prejudice.
Mr. Winterdale, the miser, is unsociable, so the only other “genteel” family in the country village is the not-very-genteel clergyman and his wife. Mrs. Thacker is a wealthy fishmonger’s daughter, meaning she is loud, fat, and vulgar, with a cockney accent. The cast of characters is rounded out by Mr. Strong, a nephew on an extended visit with his aunt and uncle. Strong is very weak and effeminate—I think we are looking at a standard comic type here--but he regards himself as an irresistible catch. He is attracted to the gentle cousin Emily.
Chance brings the miser together with the ladies when he breaks his leg while passing their house. Apparently broken legs were treated in those days by immobilizing the patient for weeks, so the miser becomes Mrs. Mereval’s house guest—he can’t even be taken to his own house on a stretcher--and by the time he’s well enough to move, his son Henry is in love with Emily, Catherine is in love with Henry's college friend Mr. Montgomery, and the miser is engaged to Catherine’s mother.
Theme one: duty to parents
The plot unfolds in a leisurely fashion. There are two long scenes, recounted in Catherine’s letters, where Mrs. Mereval deftly parries questions and surmises from the clergyman and his wife about the "Mrs. Montgomery" the miser is going to marry. We learn that although Catherine has been foolish with money, she does have principles, and she’s deeply uneasy that her mother is luring the miser into marriage without disclosing all her debts, for which he’ll become responsible once he’s her husband. This “would be worse than artful; it would be base; and Mr. Winterdale would be the last man upon earth to marry her, if [the debts] were known.”
Charlotte’s mother was a spendthrift and she’s being deceitful, Henry struggles with his miserly father, and Henry’s friend Mr. Montgomery happens to be the son of the relative who is suing Charlotte for her entire inheritance. The young people struggle with their parents’ behaviour, trying to adhere to the moral and social convention that they must respect and obey their parents. They discuss their dilemmas but there are no solutions—they can only watch events unfold. As Catherine said, “My mother is indebted to every tradesman employed about her house and person; her real motive for retiring into this country… was to elude her creditors; and she has married Mr. Winterdale, without informing him of these circumstances. Ask me not whether I excuse or condemn such proceedings. Different duties forbid me to do either.”
The plot unfolds in a leisurely fashion. There are two long scenes, recounted in Catherine’s letters, where Mrs. Mereval deftly parries questions and surmises from the clergyman and his wife about the "Mrs. Montgomery" the miser is going to marry. We learn that although Catherine has been foolish with money, she does have principles, and she’s deeply uneasy that her mother is luring the miser into marriage without disclosing all her debts, for which he’ll become responsible once he’s her husband. This “would be worse than artful; it would be base; and Mr. Winterdale would be the last man upon earth to marry her, if [the debts] were known.”
Charlotte’s mother was a spendthrift and she’s being deceitful, Henry struggles with his miserly father, and Henry’s friend Mr. Montgomery happens to be the son of the relative who is suing Charlotte for her entire inheritance. The young people struggle with their parents’ behaviour, trying to adhere to the moral and social convention that they must respect and obey their parents. They discuss their dilemmas but there are no solutions—they can only watch events unfold. As Catherine said, “My mother is indebted to every tradesman employed about her house and person; her real motive for retiring into this country… was to elude her creditors; and she has married Mr. Winterdale, without informing him of these circumstances. Ask me not whether I excuse or condemn such proceedings. Different duties forbid me to do either.”
Alfred Worthington, Aberystwyth Harbour, The National Library of Wales A very short honeymoon
The Winterdales’ marriage soon becomes a battle of wills. The miser expected complete and unquestioning obedience and is astonished when he doesn’t get it. The new Mrs. Winterdale is cheerful and attentive, but she laughs at his complaints when she buys an expensive carriage, has the house redecorated, and drags him on a vacation to a seaside town. Yet, despite his complaints, it seems his life is better—she draws him out, getting him to travel and meet people. Catherine observes that in public, her mother “makes her husband the principal object of her attention. No remark of his, however trifling, falls to the ground. She waits a moment, to see if it is noticed by another; if it is not, she replies to it herself; places it in the fairest light, and adds to its consequence. In a word, she draws him out, and draws more good sense out of him than any person ever suspected was in. Shy, and almost timid himself, his face shines with gratitude for such distinction.”
The Winterdales’ marriage soon becomes a battle of wills. The miser expected complete and unquestioning obedience and is astonished when he doesn’t get it. The new Mrs. Winterdale is cheerful and attentive, but she laughs at his complaints when she buys an expensive carriage, has the house redecorated, and drags him on a vacation to a seaside town. Yet, despite his complaints, it seems his life is better—she draws him out, getting him to travel and meet people. Catherine observes that in public, her mother “makes her husband the principal object of her attention. No remark of his, however trifling, falls to the ground. She waits a moment, to see if it is noticed by another; if it is not, she replies to it herself; places it in the fairest light, and adds to its consequence. In a word, she draws him out, and draws more good sense out of him than any person ever suspected was in. Shy, and almost timid himself, his face shines with gratitude for such distinction.”
Theme two: what makes a good marriage?
Catherine more than once returns to questioning the dilemma of how to choose a spouse. Should women put up with tyranny for the sake of financial security? “Shall I sit down to breakfast, to dinner, to supper, every day, with a man who may hate, or despise me, or to whom I may be indifferent! Shall this man have a right to enter my apartment any hour of the day; and shall I not have the power even to exclude him at night! Avert it, heaven! For I could not exist under it.” After observing another local couple, the Elringtons, where the husband is a sneering jerk to his wife, she asks herself: “Is the situation of woman such that she must play the tyrant, or become a slave? And is man such an abject creature that he must either domineer or crouch? Cannot two rational beings steer a middle course, in which each should alternately assert its rights, and give them up to the other?”
I won’t recount the entire plot here, but for a while it appears that Catherine faces a future without the man she loves and with no money, either. She bravely faces up to circumstances which her own past extravagance have helped to bring about. After some difficulties and of course some remarkable coincidences, Catherine wins the lawsuit, thanks to some timely help from Mr. Winterdale. The money will stay in the family, though, because she is marrying the son of the long-lost relative. Emily marries Henry Winterdale and the miser becomes less miserly.
Catherine more than once returns to questioning the dilemma of how to choose a spouse. Should women put up with tyranny for the sake of financial security? “Shall I sit down to breakfast, to dinner, to supper, every day, with a man who may hate, or despise me, or to whom I may be indifferent! Shall this man have a right to enter my apartment any hour of the day; and shall I not have the power even to exclude him at night! Avert it, heaven! For I could not exist under it.” After observing another local couple, the Elringtons, where the husband is a sneering jerk to his wife, she asks herself: “Is the situation of woman such that she must play the tyrant, or become a slave? And is man such an abject creature that he must either domineer or crouch? Cannot two rational beings steer a middle course, in which each should alternately assert its rights, and give them up to the other?”
I won’t recount the entire plot here, but for a while it appears that Catherine faces a future without the man she loves and with no money, either. She bravely faces up to circumstances which her own past extravagance have helped to bring about. After some difficulties and of course some remarkable coincidences, Catherine wins the lawsuit, thanks to some timely help from Mr. Winterdale. The money will stay in the family, though, because she is marrying the son of the long-lost relative. Emily marries Henry Winterdale and the miser becomes less miserly.
Charles Green, Miss Havisham, 1898 Other features of interest
East and West Indies
There is almost no mention of empire in this book. Catherine's mother touches on slavery when she expresses her belief that you have to rule or be ruled, because the freedom to be despotic creates despots: “Few are the human beings who will not abuse power; and many a planter in the West Indies has become a brute, that, in England would have made a good master.”
Love scene scrubbed
This book includes some extended conversations between the young people. Catherine’s lover attempts to persuade her to elope with him, but she refuses, still deploying her trademark wit even as her heart is breaking. However, like Austen, the love scenes are elided: “I shall not now trouble you with what passed between Montgomery and myself; which, though one of the most interesting to the parties concerned, would, probably, be one of the least so to you. It is sufficient to say that it was serious and tender… the result was gratitude to the Supreme Disposer of Events.”
Real-life Miss Havisham
Was there a real-life prototype of Dickens’ Miss Havisham in Great Expectations? The heroine tells her friend, “There was a lady in London, an aunt of the celebrated John Wilkes [a radical British politician], who having met with a disappointment in love, in her early youth, whether from the death or infidelity of its object, I now forget, vowed never more to see the sun. She shut herself up in her bedchamber, which she did not quit, till she was carried out in her coffin. A lady, a friend of ours, who is now about sixty years of age, was once admitted into her apartment, when a child… she perfectly remembers seeing her; in a light, drab-coloured camblet manteau, with cuffs and robings of crimson sattin…”
Gossip
Austen teaches us that it is vulgar to gossip with your servants. Our heroine several times acknowledges that it is low-bred to listen to their gossip, but she says there is nothing else to do in the neighbourhood.
East and West Indies
There is almost no mention of empire in this book. Catherine's mother touches on slavery when she expresses her belief that you have to rule or be ruled, because the freedom to be despotic creates despots: “Few are the human beings who will not abuse power; and many a planter in the West Indies has become a brute, that, in England would have made a good master.”
Love scene scrubbed
This book includes some extended conversations between the young people. Catherine’s lover attempts to persuade her to elope with him, but she refuses, still deploying her trademark wit even as her heart is breaking. However, like Austen, the love scenes are elided: “I shall not now trouble you with what passed between Montgomery and myself; which, though one of the most interesting to the parties concerned, would, probably, be one of the least so to you. It is sufficient to say that it was serious and tender… the result was gratitude to the Supreme Disposer of Events.”
Real-life Miss Havisham
Was there a real-life prototype of Dickens’ Miss Havisham in Great Expectations? The heroine tells her friend, “There was a lady in London, an aunt of the celebrated John Wilkes [a radical British politician], who having met with a disappointment in love, in her early youth, whether from the death or infidelity of its object, I now forget, vowed never more to see the sun. She shut herself up in her bedchamber, which she did not quit, till she was carried out in her coffin. A lady, a friend of ours, who is now about sixty years of age, was once admitted into her apartment, when a child… she perfectly remembers seeing her; in a light, drab-coloured camblet manteau, with cuffs and robings of crimson sattin…”
Gossip
Austen teaches us that it is vulgar to gossip with your servants. Our heroine several times acknowledges that it is low-bred to listen to their gossip, but she says there is nothing else to do in the neighbourhood.
Private theatricals
Catherine’s mother wants to put on a production of Much Ado About Nothing. She wants to play Beatrice, of course. Sounding like Tom Bertram in Mansfield Park, she tells the miser: “The expence will be trifling… our great hall is sufficiently spacious both for the performance and the audience; and it is now elegantly fitted up. We shall want nothing from London, but a few scenes, dresses, and decorations…” But he absolutely forbids it and this time, he wins.
Novel talk
It seems that lately the novels I’ve been reading all include discussions of novels, or debates about the dangers of novel-reading. In between the events of the plot, the heroine writes to her friend with what are basically book reviews, such as for Amelia Mansfield and Mary Meeke’s Independence. She also champions Mary Jones, a forgotten writer from 1750. I think we are hearing Charlotte Hutton’s voice here as she muses on the fleeting nature of fame. Jones has sunk “into total oblivion! A heavy damper, this, for the ardour of the numerous tribe of verse-writing, novel-writing, and letter-writing ladies, whose names appear in advertisements in the newspapers! Of the many books printed, how few are sold! Of these, how few are re-printed! And of these, how very few are written by women!”
Catherine’s mother wants to put on a production of Much Ado About Nothing. She wants to play Beatrice, of course. Sounding like Tom Bertram in Mansfield Park, she tells the miser: “The expence will be trifling… our great hall is sufficiently spacious both for the performance and the audience; and it is now elegantly fitted up. We shall want nothing from London, but a few scenes, dresses, and decorations…” But he absolutely forbids it and this time, he wins.
Novel talk
It seems that lately the novels I’ve been reading all include discussions of novels, or debates about the dangers of novel-reading. In between the events of the plot, the heroine writes to her friend with what are basically book reviews, such as for Amelia Mansfield and Mary Meeke’s Independence. She also champions Mary Jones, a forgotten writer from 1750. I think we are hearing Charlotte Hutton’s voice here as she muses on the fleeting nature of fame. Jones has sunk “into total oblivion! A heavy damper, this, for the ardour of the numerous tribe of verse-writing, novel-writing, and letter-writing ladies, whose names appear in advertisements in the newspapers! Of the many books printed, how few are sold! Of these, how few are re-printed! And of these, how very few are written by women!”
Catherine Hutton About the author
Charlotte Hutton (1756-1846) was the daughter of then-prominent scholar William Hutton, an historian of Birmingham. She was a friend of Sarah Harriet Burney, half-sister to Frances Burney who was the author of the much-derided (by me and Jane Austen) novel Clarentine. Both Charlotte Hutton and Sarah Burney read and admired Austen’s novels, without, of course, knowing who she was until her authorship was announced by the family after her death in 1817. Unlike Austen, Hutton had the advantage, through her father, of knowing a number of prominent political and literary figures, such as the author Robert Bage.
The Huttons were dissenters and progressive in their politics. Their home was attacked during the anti-Catholic Gordon riots and burned down, an event she describes in her letters. After her death, her letters were published by her niece as Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century.
Charlotte Hutton (1756-1846) was the daughter of then-prominent scholar William Hutton, an historian of Birmingham. She was a friend of Sarah Harriet Burney, half-sister to Frances Burney who was the author of the much-derided (by me and Jane Austen) novel Clarentine. Both Charlotte Hutton and Sarah Burney read and admired Austen’s novels, without, of course, knowing who she was until her authorship was announced by the family after her death in 1817. Unlike Austen, Hutton had the advantage, through her father, of knowing a number of prominent political and literary figures, such as the author Robert Bage.
The Huttons were dissenters and progressive in their politics. Their home was attacked during the anti-Catholic Gordon riots and burned down, an event she describes in her letters. After her death, her letters were published by her niece as Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century.
Contemporary Reviews
The Monthly Review called the novel “a promising first attempt. The dialogues are natural, and each letter is characteristic of its supposed writer.” Like me, they found the letters from the servants—or as the reviewer put it, the “inferior characters” —hard to struggle though: the letters “might have been more intelligible and amusing, if every word in them had not been so studiously mis-spelt.”
Another reviewer praised the book for giving “a picture of human nature as we find it,” in contrast to the outlandish gothic novel.
My review: This story has lively characters but is limited by the artificiality of the epistolary style. We never meet Catherine’s correspondent, she is just a plot device. Our heroine never asks her supposed good friend, “so, what’s new with you?” But I enjoyed the story and especially the battle of wills between the miser and his wife. The heroine is intelligent and lively and the author has the good sense to send her heroes off stage when she has nothing for them to do. I think that the author is not dogmatic in her morality—people are not all good or all evil, and finding the right path in life is not always easy.
Previous post: Maids as they are not Next post: The Banks of the Wye
The Monthly Review called the novel “a promising first attempt. The dialogues are natural, and each letter is characteristic of its supposed writer.” Like me, they found the letters from the servants—or as the reviewer put it, the “inferior characters” —hard to struggle though: the letters “might have been more intelligible and amusing, if every word in them had not been so studiously mis-spelt.”
Another reviewer praised the book for giving “a picture of human nature as we find it,” in contrast to the outlandish gothic novel.
My review: This story has lively characters but is limited by the artificiality of the epistolary style. We never meet Catherine’s correspondent, she is just a plot device. Our heroine never asks her supposed good friend, “so, what’s new with you?” But I enjoyed the story and especially the battle of wills between the miser and his wife. The heroine is intelligent and lively and the author has the good sense to send her heroes off stage when she has nothing for them to do. I think that the author is not dogmatic in her morality—people are not all good or all evil, and finding the right path in life is not always easy.
Previous post: Maids as they are not Next post: The Banks of the Wye
| Wilson, Cheryl A. “‘Something like Mine’: Catherine Hutton, Jane Austen, and Feminist Recovery Work.” The Eighteenth Century (Lubbock) [Philadelphia], vol. 56, no. 2, 2015, pp. 151–64. |
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