The Rector's Daughter (Virago Modern Classics)

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He becomes aware that Mary would have been so much better for him, with their shared interested in real literature, all that Kathy can stand to hear read to her are vulgar, inappropriate works and all she cares about is hunting, her horse and the dog…in fact, the idea that she consorted with a man who has no interest in the hunt is also a proof of the depth of feeling she has for him and the relationship will have a complex dynamic… You find this stupendous Magnum opus on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list https://www.theguardian.com/books/200... But, Dora, don’t you think there is a Love ‘Which alters not with Time’s brief hours and days, / But bears it out even to the edge of Doom’?”

Afterwards she became an actress. She later turned to writing. Her first book was a collection of short stories, Mrs Hammond's Children, published in 1901 under the pseudonym Mary Strafford. Juliet Stevenson reads FM Mayor's unfairly Neglected Classic, the story of a plain, reliable parson's daughter whose life of duty and service is thrown into confusion by an unexpected and unsought love affair. Today we are introduced to Mary and her country home. With deft precision, FM Mayor captures the emotions stirring in Mary's heart and the pain of thwarted middle aged desire. With her unerring eye, she reveals both the bitterness and strengths of a happy marriage. The Rector's Daughter is acerbic and poignant and much deserves its loyal fans and its place within Radio 4's Neglected Classics season. No one could accuse F M Mayor of writing a cheerful story, but she certainly wrote a beautifully poignant one, and one I found very readable. I have been circling around this novel and The Third Miss Symons for some time, knowing already that there would be a degree of sadness to the stories of stagnant lives that Mayor appears to have particularly written about. I have Simon and Karen’s 1924 club to thank for giving me the nudge to read The Rector’s Daughter my first F M Mayor novel. It is all beautifully written and the characterisation is superb. None of the characters are one-dimensional. It would have been easy to make Robert Herbert unsympathetic, but he isn’t. It would also have been easy to make Kathy empty headed and entirely frivolous, but she is not. The minor characters are also strong. Mary herself is a tremendously complex and interesting character; there is a lot of repressed feelings and emotions between her and her father, which are barely spoken of. But Mary is so very believable and one does feel great sympathy for her; this is what makes the novel so devastating. Susan Hill is a strong advocate of this book, calling it one of the best of the neglected classics. She is right; it is a masterpiece.

A masterpiece of style, insight and tact. Mary Jocelyn is the daughter of a Canon who stands head and shoulders intellectually above the village, not two miles from London, where he has his church. A man of great acuity and probity, he chills her early literary efforts. After her mother's early death, she spends an outwardly loveless existence tending to a remaining invalid sister. She has the love of her life when the son of a Cambridge classmate of her father's--at university handsome and supercilious, now neither--comes as parson to a neighbouring parish. Mr Herbert comes first to see her father, to consult him on Tertullian and discuss Vergil, but increasingly opens his heart to Mary. He confides his religious doubts, his fear of wanting human and holy warmth. It seems inevitable he will propose, but she reads in a letter over breakfast that--in an outflow of spirits prompted by Mary's friendship, no more--he has offered himself to a much younger woman, a hard and slangy orphan, beautiful, and brought up more by groundspeople than governesses. It was such a poignant read that it is taking me a few days to mentally recover from reading about poor Mary’s life. Recover from reading about the depths and constancy of her love, devotion and emotions. Her deep-rooted devotion to her Father and the man that she loved with her heart and soul. In October 2009 ‘The Rector’s Daughter’ was described in the BBC's 'Open Book' program as one of the best 'neglected classics'.

Thank you to Virago for republishing this; the author was completely unknown to me. I chose it because a Goodreads reviewer gave it 5 stars, and also there was a copy in my local public library system.Perhaps my ennui can be attributed to spinster novel fatigue? I have read quite a few recently, and have to say that May Sinclair’s Life and Death of Harriett Frean attempts a similar type of novel rather more (for me) successfully. The public debate about unmarried women between the world wars (covered fascinatingly in a chapter of Nicola Beauman’s A Very Great Profession, and less fascinatingly in Virginia Nicholson’s Singled Out) was loud and often angry; the 1920s novels dealing with this issue were written at a time when the issue was contentious, as well as potentially tragic. Maybe I’ve just read too many, now? Neither of us can remember buying it, yet the book has a label declaring that it has been bought since second hand book shops went in for bar codes. (In other words within the last few years). One of us must have bought it and carefully placed it on the correct shelf. *My new year's resolution is only to read books already on the shelves (except for research) in an attempt to save a few pennies and to ensure I get a little closer to reading every book I own before I die. However it came to be on the shelf, I chose it because it was there, because I'd never heard of either the novel or the author, because it had been deemed a modern classic by Penguin in 1973 (the date my copy came off the presses) and because, even if I don't think the cover particularly suits the novel) I was taken by the portrait on the front.