| 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 discussion of these forgotten novels, and I discuss 18th-century attitudes which I do not necessarily endorse. This post resumes an earlier thread about the mystery around the authorship of The Woman of Colour. |
CMP#261 Book Review: The Banks of the Wye: or, Two Summers at Clifton (1808)
The British Library copy of this novel is bound in plain boards. Novels could be rebound in leather with more ornate spines. The Banks of the Wye is one of 21 novels in the attribution chain involving the 1808 novel The Woman of Colour. This is a novel which has ben speculated about and commented on in academic circles because it was so unusual to have a mixed-race protagonist in a novel of this era.
For more about the attribution chain (“by the author of”) and how it relates to the mystery of who wrote The Woman of Colour, click here. I was not able to read The Banks of the Wye when I was reading my way through the other novels earlier this year, because it is not digitized. Last month, however, I visited England and spent several mornings reading it in one of the peaceful and sedate Reading Rooms of the British Library.
Now that I’ve read every book in the attribution chain but one (Fedaretta), I would nominate The Banks of the Wye as the best-written of the 21 novels, with The House That Jack Built as a close second. The anonymous authoress sustains her story through four volumes. She sets up her major plot points with skilful foreshadowing, telling us the story of a young bride named Teresa who went astray, and then reiterating her doom in the life of her granddaughter. She handles a lot of characters and sub-plots and keeps them all in motion. It was a frequent fault of novelists of this time to introduce a gallery of crazy characters just for the sake of having crazy characters—such as, an assortment of people at a vacation resort. The Banks of the Wye’s comic characters are not there just to be ridiculous; they play some part in the plot. My favourite is Miss Patience Perkyns, a woman on the wrong side of thirty who haunts vacation spots in search of a husband and makes a lot of noise about her maiden virtue.
For more about the attribution chain (“by the author of”) and how it relates to the mystery of who wrote The Woman of Colour, click here. I was not able to read The Banks of the Wye when I was reading my way through the other novels earlier this year, because it is not digitized. Last month, however, I visited England and spent several mornings reading it in one of the peaceful and sedate Reading Rooms of the British Library.
Now that I’ve read every book in the attribution chain but one (Fedaretta), I would nominate The Banks of the Wye as the best-written of the 21 novels, with The House That Jack Built as a close second. The anonymous authoress sustains her story through four volumes. She sets up her major plot points with skilful foreshadowing, telling us the story of a young bride named Teresa who went astray, and then reiterating her doom in the life of her granddaughter. She handles a lot of characters and sub-plots and keeps them all in motion. It was a frequent fault of novelists of this time to introduce a gallery of crazy characters just for the sake of having crazy characters—such as, an assortment of people at a vacation resort. The Banks of the Wye’s comic characters are not there just to be ridiculous; they play some part in the plot. My favourite is Miss Patience Perkyns, a woman on the wrong side of thirty who haunts vacation spots in search of a husband and makes a lot of noise about her maiden virtue.
The cousins take a boat trip to see Tintern Abbey in Volume One Good girl, bad girl
Like some other novels in the attribution chain, The Banks of the Wye sets up two young women, in this case sisters, to contrast virtue with vice. As is typical, vice turns out to be more interesting than virtue. Because Emily stays at home with her parents, she has nothing to do in this novel but worry about her siblings and conceal her secret love for Henry, the wealthy squire’s son. The authoress was aware of this dramatic problem: no “display of the novelist’s powers; no adventures and no hair-breadth escapes have yet presented themselves in [Emily’s] history—She is unfit for a heroine, and yet perhaps in the exercise of all the social and relative duties, and in strength of mind and sweetness of disposition, we might venture to set her against any heroine of romance or novel, ancient or modern.”
Emily's younger sister Teresa is first seduced by her own vanity when their decadent city cousins come to visit the family at their remote vicarage and her cousin Rinaldo starts to make much of her. We see here the usual contrast between the wicked city, where people marry only for advantage and money, and are sucked into the vortex of dissipation, versus the pure delights of the country, where heroines can spend their time reading, watering their gardens, and dispensing charity to the poor. The visit of the city slickers is like introducing the snake into the Garden of Eden, a plot point we also see in The Farmer of Inglewood Forest or Mansfield Park. Luckily, our heroes, Frederic Warrender and his wealthy friend Henry Wharton, quickly see through cousin Clementina’s ridiculous and affected behaviour. Their hearts are in no danger. Rinaldo’s mother was bored at the vicarage because they have no novels to read-- Austen laughed about this habit of disparaging novels within the pages of novels in Northanger Abbey. The wife of a wealthy merchant herself, the aunt constantly name-drops her titled friend “Lady Slingsby,” which was a handy way to introduce a significant character who does not appear until later in the novel. In the same fashion Austen has Emma talk about Jane Fairfax long before she actually appears in Emma.
Like some other novels in the attribution chain, The Banks of the Wye sets up two young women, in this case sisters, to contrast virtue with vice. As is typical, vice turns out to be more interesting than virtue. Because Emily stays at home with her parents, she has nothing to do in this novel but worry about her siblings and conceal her secret love for Henry, the wealthy squire’s son. The authoress was aware of this dramatic problem: no “display of the novelist’s powers; no adventures and no hair-breadth escapes have yet presented themselves in [Emily’s] history—She is unfit for a heroine, and yet perhaps in the exercise of all the social and relative duties, and in strength of mind and sweetness of disposition, we might venture to set her against any heroine of romance or novel, ancient or modern.”
Emily's younger sister Teresa is first seduced by her own vanity when their decadent city cousins come to visit the family at their remote vicarage and her cousin Rinaldo starts to make much of her. We see here the usual contrast between the wicked city, where people marry only for advantage and money, and are sucked into the vortex of dissipation, versus the pure delights of the country, where heroines can spend their time reading, watering their gardens, and dispensing charity to the poor. The visit of the city slickers is like introducing the snake into the Garden of Eden, a plot point we also see in The Farmer of Inglewood Forest or Mansfield Park. Luckily, our heroes, Frederic Warrender and his wealthy friend Henry Wharton, quickly see through cousin Clementina’s ridiculous and affected behaviour. Their hearts are in no danger. Rinaldo’s mother was bored at the vicarage because they have no novels to read-- Austen laughed about this habit of disparaging novels within the pages of novels in Northanger Abbey. The wife of a wealthy merchant herself, the aunt constantly name-drops her titled friend “Lady Slingsby,” which was a handy way to introduce a significant character who does not appear until later in the novel. In the same fashion Austen has Emma talk about Jane Fairfax long before she actually appears in Emma.
"A Calm," (detail) Thomas Gillray, 1810 A well-organized plot
There are some descriptive passages which rise above the usual cliché, and even hint at free indirect discourse, as when the author describes Teresa’s gradual descent into regret and insanity: “Teresa listened with apparent satisfaction to [Rinaldo’s] proposal of changing the scene. She began to think that Brighton was of all places the most cheerless at the approach of winter; --the roaring surge on the beach surely sounded here unusually hollow. The wind, as it blew through the trees, and despoiled them of their foliage, sent forth a mourning sigh which reached her heart; even the clouds looked more murky here than in Monmouthshire.”
Mind you, there is a lot of novel cant as well: Before Teresa dies, her loving family reunites with her and forgives her: “a temporary renovation seemed to take place in the enfeebled frame of Teresa; but it was like the last quivering flame of the expiring taper; her spirits were raised beyond her strength, and her sorrowing friends saw too clearly that her dissolution was approaching!”
The touches of comedy are not so successful either. There is the usual “howsomedever” garrulous menial explaining a backstory and some forced misunderstandings between the lovers. Our tastes have changed in this respect. If these episodes seem contrived and gratuitous, I think we can say the same thing about the scene in Sense and Sensibility when Mrs. Jennings thinks Colonel Brandon is proposing to Elinor.
There are some descriptive passages which rise above the usual cliché, and even hint at free indirect discourse, as when the author describes Teresa’s gradual descent into regret and insanity: “Teresa listened with apparent satisfaction to [Rinaldo’s] proposal of changing the scene. She began to think that Brighton was of all places the most cheerless at the approach of winter; --the roaring surge on the beach surely sounded here unusually hollow. The wind, as it blew through the trees, and despoiled them of their foliage, sent forth a mourning sigh which reached her heart; even the clouds looked more murky here than in Monmouthshire.”
Mind you, there is a lot of novel cant as well: Before Teresa dies, her loving family reunites with her and forgives her: “a temporary renovation seemed to take place in the enfeebled frame of Teresa; but it was like the last quivering flame of the expiring taper; her spirits were raised beyond her strength, and her sorrowing friends saw too clearly that her dissolution was approaching!”
The touches of comedy are not so successful either. There is the usual “howsomedever” garrulous menial explaining a backstory and some forced misunderstandings between the lovers. Our tastes have changed in this respect. If these episodes seem contrived and gratuitous, I think we can say the same thing about the scene in Sense and Sensibility when Mrs. Jennings thinks Colonel Brandon is proposing to Elinor.
Lydia "tenderly flirting" in Brighton. Hugh Thomson illustration Some more Austen parallels
When the city cousins leave the vicarage, they offer to take Teresa with them, but her parents refuse. Poor Teresa! Just like Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, panting to see the bright lights. The narrator notes sympathetically, “She wished that she had been of the other sex; then she must have gone into the world as well as her brothers, but now there was a gloomy void before her, no incident, no variety, no interesting object to divert her thoughts.”
Luckily, or unluckily, as it turns out, Henry Wharton’s rich spinster aunt offers to take her to Clifton, a scenic resort near Bristol, to serve as her companion. There, Teresa snags herself a rich and not-very-bright husband, like Maria Bertram in Mansfield Park, but Teresa loses everything when Rinaldo crosses her path again.
As with Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park, the fall of the erring sister is traced to faults in her upbringing—as the baby of the family, Teresa was overindulged. But even amongst all the moralizing, the author adds some sophistication and nuance when she ridicules the self-righteous Miss Perkyns: “On seeing [Teresa] she shrunk back, and placing herself with her back to the corner of the wall, she held her clothes tightly round her legs, as if she feared that the flounces of her petticoat should be contaminated, if it should have the slightest contact with the garment of Teresa.”
The narrator adds sarcastically, “[Teresa’s] spirit supported her, to return the broad stares, which was cast on her by this immaculate virgin….”
In the same way, Austen portrays a range of reactions to Lydia's transgressions. Elizabeth forthrightly but silently condemns Wickham and Lydia for letting their passions overpower their virtue, but Mr. Bennet is scornful when Mr. Collins advises him to cast Lydia out of the family.
When the city cousins leave the vicarage, they offer to take Teresa with them, but her parents refuse. Poor Teresa! Just like Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, panting to see the bright lights. The narrator notes sympathetically, “She wished that she had been of the other sex; then she must have gone into the world as well as her brothers, but now there was a gloomy void before her, no incident, no variety, no interesting object to divert her thoughts.”
Luckily, or unluckily, as it turns out, Henry Wharton’s rich spinster aunt offers to take her to Clifton, a scenic resort near Bristol, to serve as her companion. There, Teresa snags herself a rich and not-very-bright husband, like Maria Bertram in Mansfield Park, but Teresa loses everything when Rinaldo crosses her path again.
As with Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park, the fall of the erring sister is traced to faults in her upbringing—as the baby of the family, Teresa was overindulged. But even amongst all the moralizing, the author adds some sophistication and nuance when she ridicules the self-righteous Miss Perkyns: “On seeing [Teresa] she shrunk back, and placing herself with her back to the corner of the wall, she held her clothes tightly round her legs, as if she feared that the flounces of her petticoat should be contaminated, if it should have the slightest contact with the garment of Teresa.”
The narrator adds sarcastically, “[Teresa’s] spirit supported her, to return the broad stares, which was cast on her by this immaculate virgin….”
In the same way, Austen portrays a range of reactions to Lydia's transgressions. Elizabeth forthrightly but silently condemns Wickham and Lydia for letting their passions overpower their virtue, but Mr. Bennet is scornful when Mr. Collins advises him to cast Lydia out of the family.
Hoeing the cane fields, Jamaica. Wikicommons, color-enhanced with AI Slavery
And, speaking of Mansfield Park, in this novel we have--once again--an authoress condemning slavery much more openly than Jane Austen ever did. When Frederic and Emily’s grandfather gives his backstory to his new son-in-law, he describes a trip to the West Indies: “At length we landed in the island of Jamaica, the new and peculiar feelings which agitated my mind at beholding the novel scene before me I should vainly endeavour to retrace. I shuddered at seeing herds of my fellow men, labouring and sweating as beasts of burden for the lordly planter; but I was unique in my commiseration of the poor negroes, nobody wondered or seemed shocked but myself; they considered this poor race of beings as ranking below the scale of man in creation, because the Almighty had given them a darker skin. I felt for their injuries, but I felt in silence, for I had not the power of reliving them from their oppressors."
Other features
Although the forgotten novels of Austen's era are notably similar in theme and style, you never know what is going to pop up in them. This novel contains a description of Munchausen by Proxy. Mrs. Woodley is a mother who domineers her sickly adult son. When he elopes with Teresa, she is distraught: “No never, never,” said she: “for I am sure nobody can make Billy happy but me. Who can understand all his ways but me? Who can tell all his symptoms but me? I discovered his illnesses when nobody else could; I prevailed on him to take physic when he felt no pain, to avoid the illness which I could foresee… Oh my heart will break.” As it turns out, her love for her son is entirely conditional.
There is also a brief description of a neurodivergent woman, albeit in a minor character. This same author also put a neurodivergent woman into her novel The Splendour of Adversity.
There are several discussions of fashion which I think would be of interest to the fashion historian. Clara Wharton gives her opinion that when girls started wearing diaphanous dresses without pockets, then they had no place to carry their handkerchiefs and their smelling salts, so they gave up the affectation of fainting fits.
“Fashion cannot change the character,” Emily counters.
“Fashion can do any thing she pleases,” said Mrs. Clara.
And, speaking of Mansfield Park, in this novel we have--once again--an authoress condemning slavery much more openly than Jane Austen ever did. When Frederic and Emily’s grandfather gives his backstory to his new son-in-law, he describes a trip to the West Indies: “At length we landed in the island of Jamaica, the new and peculiar feelings which agitated my mind at beholding the novel scene before me I should vainly endeavour to retrace. I shuddered at seeing herds of my fellow men, labouring and sweating as beasts of burden for the lordly planter; but I was unique in my commiseration of the poor negroes, nobody wondered or seemed shocked but myself; they considered this poor race of beings as ranking below the scale of man in creation, because the Almighty had given them a darker skin. I felt for their injuries, but I felt in silence, for I had not the power of reliving them from their oppressors."
Other features
Although the forgotten novels of Austen's era are notably similar in theme and style, you never know what is going to pop up in them. This novel contains a description of Munchausen by Proxy. Mrs. Woodley is a mother who domineers her sickly adult son. When he elopes with Teresa, she is distraught: “No never, never,” said she: “for I am sure nobody can make Billy happy but me. Who can understand all his ways but me? Who can tell all his symptoms but me? I discovered his illnesses when nobody else could; I prevailed on him to take physic when he felt no pain, to avoid the illness which I could foresee… Oh my heart will break.” As it turns out, her love for her son is entirely conditional.
There is also a brief description of a neurodivergent woman, albeit in a minor character. This same author also put a neurodivergent woman into her novel The Splendour of Adversity.
There are several discussions of fashion which I think would be of interest to the fashion historian. Clara Wharton gives her opinion that when girls started wearing diaphanous dresses without pockets, then they had no place to carry their handkerchiefs and their smelling salts, so they gave up the affectation of fainting fits.
“Fashion cannot change the character,” Emily counters.
“Fashion can do any thing she pleases,” said Mrs. Clara.
About the author
As the English database explains, this novel has been attributed to “J.H. James, but no other evidence about such an author writing in the period has been discovered. James Henry James… was the author of The Banks of the Wye and Other Poems (1856).” This is how James’s name got connected to this title and the sequence of novels connected with it.
Our anonymous authoress--and her publisher, Crosby--must have been pleased with this review from The Ladies’ Monthly Museum: “We have seldom met with a more interesting or unexceptionable novel than the Banks of the Wye. The style is easy, unaffected, and chaste. The characters are drawn without overstepping the modesty of nature, and the sentiments do honour to the writer. The incidents occur naturally, and are diversified with skill; no tedious descriptions fatigue the attention, no extravagant romantic flights, disgust common sense. The moral is excellent, and is not forced upon is, as it is after the perusal of certain pernicious trash, like a pill after a fit of indigestion; but occurs from our own reflections on the gradual fall of innocence, led astray by vanity and pride. Many of the scenes depicted are calculated to awaken the liveliest sensibility: on the whole, it is entitled to our warmest recommendation.”
As I mentioned, The Banks of the Wye is not in the Corvey Collection of digitized novels. A few copies survive in university libraries (Harvard, Exeter, and Manchester) and at the British Library. The subtitle, Two Summers at Clifton, indicates that the publisher was trying to associate it with a sub-genre called the "season" novel, a novel set amongst fashionable people at a fashionable place. The author had previously published the "season" novel, A Winter in Bath.
The Banks of the Wye has yielded some additional evidence about the authorship of The Woman of Colour. Stay tuned.
As the English database explains, this novel has been attributed to “J.H. James, but no other evidence about such an author writing in the period has been discovered. James Henry James… was the author of The Banks of the Wye and Other Poems (1856).” This is how James’s name got connected to this title and the sequence of novels connected with it.
Our anonymous authoress--and her publisher, Crosby--must have been pleased with this review from The Ladies’ Monthly Museum: “We have seldom met with a more interesting or unexceptionable novel than the Banks of the Wye. The style is easy, unaffected, and chaste. The characters are drawn without overstepping the modesty of nature, and the sentiments do honour to the writer. The incidents occur naturally, and are diversified with skill; no tedious descriptions fatigue the attention, no extravagant romantic flights, disgust common sense. The moral is excellent, and is not forced upon is, as it is after the perusal of certain pernicious trash, like a pill after a fit of indigestion; but occurs from our own reflections on the gradual fall of innocence, led astray by vanity and pride. Many of the scenes depicted are calculated to awaken the liveliest sensibility: on the whole, it is entitled to our warmest recommendation.”
As I mentioned, The Banks of the Wye is not in the Corvey Collection of digitized novels. A few copies survive in university libraries (Harvard, Exeter, and Manchester) and at the British Library. The subtitle, Two Summers at Clifton, indicates that the publisher was trying to associate it with a sub-genre called the "season" novel, a novel set amongst fashionable people at a fashionable place. The author had previously published the "season" novel, A Winter in Bath.
The Banks of the Wye has yielded some additional evidence about the authorship of The Woman of Colour. Stay tuned.
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