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So, yeah, The Adventure of Princess Sylvia and Princess Virginia (the latter credited to both Williamsons, the former to Alice) are the same book. According to this advertisement, Sylvia is the original and Virginia is the revision. But, contrary to the advertisement’s assertion, it hardly qualifies as a new story.

Almost everyone’s names are changed, as are some nationalities. The Ruritanian country of Rhaetia retains its name, but its emperor is now Leopold rather than Maximilian. And Princess Virginia adds some American blood to Sylvia’s mix of English and German. Things are a little more up to date — it’s a different English monarch that provides the heroine and her mother with a home, and there’s a sprinking of automobiles in Virginia that aren’t present in Sylvia. The dialog is a little snappier (as Jenn pointed out), and there are places where the plot has been smoothed over a little, making it seem less as if A.M. Williamson made it up as she went along. If you’re going to read one of these, Virginia is better, but again: same book.

Sylvia/Virginia is the daughter of a dead German Grand Duke, brought up in England by her English/half English mother. She hero-worships the young Emperor of Rhaetia, and plans never to marry, since she couldn’t bear to marry anyone but him. Except then it turns out that the Emperor — or at least his Chancellor — thinks she would be a very suitable wife for him.

You would think Sylvia/Virginia would be happy about that, but no — she doesn’t want an arranged marriage. She wants Max/Leo to fall in love with her. So she and her mother, plus a governess and a French maid, set out for Rhaetia incognito to give him a chance to do just that. And then, you know, hijinks ensue, including a final twist I saw coming a mile away but enjoyed more than the rest of the book anyway.

And, you know, it’s fine. I read it in one sitting, and then I basically read it again. But the more I think about it, the more annoyed I get, because the whole thing seems kind of ridiculous and unnecessary. I mean, talk about first world problems, right?

Look at it this way: you’re Sylvia/Virginia. You’re a princess. The guy you have a crush on wants to marry you, but instead of congratulating yourself on your good luck, you decide that not only is this the only man in the world you’re willing to marry, you’re only wiling to marry him once you know he would have fallen in love with you even if he hadn’t already decided you were going to get married. That’s…convoluted and crazy, right? And also not something a princess raised on the idea of an arranged marriage would come up with?

It’s just…she keeps putting him through these tests. She has to see how he behaves when he doesn’t know who she is, and how he behaves when he thinks she doesn’t know who he is. And then, even when she’s sure he’s in love with her, she won’t drop the masquerade until he’s actually said it. Only the dialogue that follows doesn’t quite match the dialogue she’d imagined, so everyone gets a chance to be stupid for a little longer. I understood why Sylvia/Virginia was insulted by the offer the Emperor makes, but she spent so much time creating openings for him to mess up that eventually there was going to be a test he wouldn’t pass.

There were so many times Sylvia/Virginia could have just gone home, assured of a happy ending, and she just wouldn’t. And Max/Leo wasn’t much better. Deciding that everything important in your life should take second place to someone you’ve known for a week isn’t romantic, it’s irresponsible. And I don’t enjoy watching people make bad decisions.

And then the Chancellor is made to be the villain, which is crazy. All he’s trying to do is arrange for the actual marriage that’s supposed to take place between Sylvia/Virginia and the Emperor. Why is it wrong for him to discourage the Emperor’s attachment to Sylvia/Virginia’s alter ego? Why is it wrong for him to tell the Emperor that the girl is clearly lying to him when, you know, she is? Why be so offended by the idea that Sylvia/Virginia and her mother came to Rhaetia to entrap the Emperor, seeing as that’s exactly what they did? And obviously the Emperor doesn’t have the reader’s knowledge, but you know who does? A.M. Williamson.

So, yeah. When the Chancellor tells the Emperor he must be out of his senses, I can’t help but agree.

I know I’ve said before that no one ever should have let Alice Williamson publish without Charlie, but I think I’ve changed my mind. I’m still not a fan of To M.L.G., and Shay says that The Adventure of Princess Sylvia isn’t so good either, but I just finished The Girl Who Had Nothing and I’m really glad it exists. (For what it’s worth, while this book is credited solely to Mrs. C.N.Williamson, it was published while he was alive.) This book, though. It’s like a cross between Miss Cayley’s Adventures and The Career of Katherine Bush, and it’s not as good as either of those, but that just means that it’s not as good as the beginning of Miss Cayley or everything but the end of Katherine Bush. It’s better than the less good parts of both of those.

The girl in question is Joan Carthew. Abandoned by her actress mother at a young age, Joan lives in a Brighton boarding house and works as a household drudge for the mean proprietress. Eventually she gets fed up and runs away, but instead of, I don’t know, looking for work or begging or something, Joan throws herself under the wheels of a wealthy woman’s carriage and uses her subsequent injury to insinuate her way into the woman’s house. Joan is, at this point, twelve. Yeah, she’s kind of a badass.

Lady Thorndyke takes Joan in, sends her to finishing school, and eventually adopts her, but then she dies, having neglected to update her will, and Joan is left penniless again. That’s okay though, because she still has the following:

•    Her finishing school education
•    A fashionable and expensive wardrobe
•    Brains
•    Beauty
•    Confidence
•    Knowledge of shorthand and typewriting

With these, she embarks on her career as a con-woman. Other people call her an adventuress, and she apparently thinks of herself as a highwayman (“rather a gallant one”), but basically she makes her living off conning people. It’s great.

She starts by taking the job that George Gallon grudgingly offers her after Lady Thorndyke dies. She makes herself extremely valuable there for long enough to pick up some knowledge of a secret business deal, which she manages to parlay into two months living on a yacht on the Riviera and a few hundred pounds for spending money. That interlude doesn’t go on for as long as she’d like, but Joan escapes unscathed and is soon in Cornwall, going by the name “Mercy Milton” and getting her landlady and the girl she used to babysit well established in life. That episode leaves Joan with little money, but the landlady’s house in Bloomsbury now belongs to her, and going forward it becomes her home base, the place where she stays in between adventures.

Basically, everything is awesome. Joan manages to be both ruthless and human in a way that really surprised me. In most books of this type — books about adventuresses, I guess — the heroine is only allowed to be capable and independent up to a point. It’s as if heroines of this kind are being allowed to take on a male role, having agency and adventures, but have to return to a passive female role in order to have a happy ending. Either that or they’re horribly punished. Joan does, inevitably, fall in love and settle down of the end of the book, but for the bulk of it, she’s allowed to play both the male and female roles simultaneously, lying and stealing and acting as a protector to other women but also caring about people and examining her feelings and things.

I found the ending to be incredibly abrupt. It was the thing I liked the least about the book. But I wonder if it was sort of on purpose — if A.M. Williamson didn’t want to add in the romance at all but thought she had to. I think she had to, too, but not in a bad way, and I wish she’d drawn out that portion of the story more. It’s interesting, though, that Joan’s love interest seems to be there mostly to affirm that Joan is a good person. She’s not particularly happy about the way she’s lived, but he tells her over and over again that everything she’s done has been okay. I want to wait at least one more Alice without Charlie book before I declare this a trend, but I hope this theme of good women doing bad things without being made to seem like bad women continues. It’s pretty cool.

Someday I’m going to run out of books by the Williamsons where some people go on a road trip through part of Europe and at least one person isn’t what they seem and someone falls in love with the chauffeur. And on that day I will be very sad.

The Motor Maid has some really, really great bits, but mostly I enjoyed it as a good example of the Williamsons’ mini genre. (Has anyone encountered one of these chauffeurs-and-sightseeing-and-incognito books written by anyone else?) See, on one hand there’s the beginning, which takes place on a train and has a rough parallel to the beginning of Miss Cayley’s Adventures and made me think I might be starting my new favorite Williamsons book, but on the other hand this might be the snobbiest Williamsons book ever.

Our heroine is Lys d’Angely, a half French, half American orphan who’s running away from her surviving relatives so they can’t make her marry a massively wealthy manufacturer of corn plasters. New money is inherently disgusting to the Williamsons, but they’ve also made him personally disgusting, whether for the benefit of their less prejudiced readers or because they can’t conceive of a manufacturer of corn plasters who isn’t super gross, I don’t know. Anyway, Lys’ friend Pam has found her a job as companion to an elderly Russian princess and a first class ticket to Cannes to get her to it. And then Pam promptly disappears to America with her husband because the rest of the book requires that she not be on hand to give Lys any further assistance.

I should stop mocking this bit of the book though, because it’s awesome. Lys has an upper berth on the train, and the woman in the lower one is noisily unable to sleep. Also, her bulldog is runnng around on the floor below, making threatening noises. Eventually Lys gets sick of listening to the woman complain to herself about how awful she feels, so she climbs down and forcibly undresses her. Then they drink tea and eat snacks and Lys makes friends with the bulldog and everything is basically perfect. This is the bit that reminded me of Lois Cayley’s initial interactions with Lady Georgina, and I started hoping that Lys would take a job with Miss Paget and that they would have awesome adventures together. Instead, Miss Paget leaves Lys with her English address and the promise of a job if she ever needs one, and Lys arrives in Cannes to find that her prospective employer, Princess Boriskoff, has just died.

This is where the main body of the plot kicks in. An impoverished Irish noblewoman (because the Williamsons sometimes have trouble writing books without those) helps Lys find a job as lady’s maid to the nouveau riche wife of a manufacturer of liver pills. Both Lys and Lady Kilmarny are horrified by Lady Turnour and her husband, but Lys is broke, and this job will get her back to England. And while Lady Turnour is in fact awful — although I blame this more on the authors than the character — Lys ends up enjoying accompanying the Turnours on their trip through the South of France. This is a little bit because of the scenery, but mostly because of the chauffeur. His name is Jack Dane and he’s in a similar situation to Lys’ — he’s clearly a gentleman but has had to hire himself out as a chauffeur for reasons he doesn’t care to explain. They quickly become friends, and have pretty good chemistry of a very Williamsons-ish kind.

Having wound up the mechanism of the plot, the Williamsons pretty much let it toddle along by itself from there. The ending is abrupt, and makes the beginning feel too long, maybe, but The Motor Maid is a lot of fun. Except that I kept stopping and wondering whether the Williamsons — and their characters — are always quite this mean about people who aren’t like them. Lys and Jack are both poor but aristocratic, and they spend a lot of time mocking the Turnours and their stepson, who were all born into the lower classes. Neither of them associates at all with anyone in their current social position, and very few of the people they interact with on their travels meet with their approval. It’s an interesting setup, having the actual gentlefolk waiting on the social climbers, but the execution is a little too mean-spirited for it to be as fun as it could be. And in the end, the Williamsons were even a little bit mean about Miss Paget.

This is going to make it sound like I didn’t like The Motor Maid, but I did, a lot. It’s as Williamsons as it gets, and I like them. It just also made me a little bit uncomfortable.

There have been a lot of articles and blog posts floating around lately about what to read if you’re into Downton Abbey. One in particular, which talked about Elizabeth von Arnim apropos of one character giving a copy of Elizabeth and Her German Garden to another, made Evangeline at Edwardian Promenade say, “hey, what about Elinor Glyn?” Which, obviously, is the correct response to everything. And then I read it, and thought, “yeah, Elizabeth and her German Garden was popular when it came out in 1898, but would people really be trying to get each other to read a fifteen rear-old(ish) novel by a German author during World War I?” And then we decided that we could probably come up with an excellent list of Edwardian and World War I-era fiction that tied in the Downton Abbey. And so we did.

It’s a pretty casual list, mostly composed of things we came up with off the tops of out heads, a bit of research on Evangeline’s part and a bit of flipping through advertisements on mine, so we’re making no claims to be exhaustive. If you have suggestions for additions to the list, leave a comment.

Now up at Edwardian Promenade: Lord Loveland Discovers America, sequel to Lady Betty Across the Water.

I’m fascinated by anonymous novels. I love seeing ads in old Publisher’s Weeklys claiming that a new novel is written by a bestselling author who’s concealing his or her name to see how it’ll affect sales. I think it’s amazing that people used to be able to publish anonymous sequels to other authors’ books. When I can find it, I love speculation about who the real author might be.

To M.L.G.; or He Who Passed is an anonymous novel from 1912 that purports to be the autobiography of a successful American actress. She’s fallen in love with an Englishman, and he with her, but she’s scared to tell him about her somewhat disreputable past face to face, so she’s decided to publish it as a book instead.

Needless to say, it’s pure fiction. And I have no idea when or how this was discovered, but apparently it was written by Alice Muriel Williamson. Yes, the one who was married to Charles Norris Willamson and wrote many nifty books with him.  She also wrote a another book as the author of To M.L.G. — a novel than doesn’t pretend not to be one. And, although I’m beginning to think I dreamed it, I could have sworn I once came across a reference to another novel written by A.M. Williamson and published anonymously, possibly with the word “box” in the title?

Really, the fact of the book is more interesting than the content, although it isn’t a bad book. The narrator recounts her early life — in boarding houses, with a wealthy benefactor, and as an embryo actress — in a fairly natural way. She remembers more about some periods than others, she digresses and moves around in time a little, and she changes and grows in not entirely unreasonable ways. On the other hand, a lot of the book is just meant to shock. The narrator’s early life is meant to be kind of gritty and unpleasant, and it is, I guess. There are some moderately gruesome deaths, and for a while she’s put into the care of a drug addict. Later, she’s fairly frank about becoming a theatrical producer’s mistress in exchange for his patronage — as frank as you can expect of a 1912 novel that’s sort of tailored to become a sensation, anyway.

We finish up with a lot of vague stuff about self-discovery, and then, because the book is supposedly meant to tell this guy only the stuff he doesn’t know about her, it cuts off before we even get to meet him. And because the narrator talks about her life as if it’s all just leading up to falling in love with him, the book often seems like a lead-up to a meeting we never get to see. I get sort of frustrated when characters tell each other things they already know — a very unstealthy species of stealth exposition — but I really wanted it here, because as it stands, To M.L.G. has no real ending.

Some of the contemporary reviews are pretty enjoyable. Here’s a quote from a particularly diplomatic one: “Assuming even at the risk of questioning her good taste that this is a real human document, the author will have some compensation even if she fails to win back MLG — she may be sure of her royalties.” And here’s one from the only reviewer I found who was willing to state an opinion on the fact or fiction question: “To MLG or He Who Passed is one of the salient novels of the season. The autobiography of a successful actress, it is wonderfully impressive for a certain distance — until the read

Liars and Thieves will hit in both e-book and print editions in the next couple months. In my eternal attempt to keep you interested, I'm going to be offering up some chapters leading up to to the release.

If you want to get caught up before Book 2 becomes available, the cheapest method is to snag yourself a copy the Fathers and Sons "Special Edition" for Nook or Kindle at the link below.

CLICK HERE

Okey dokey, enough with the babble.

Enjoy Chapter 2!

2. Family Visits

“Boys?” Edna Williamson called out from the bottom of the stairs. “Your father and the chaperone should be here soon! Why don’t you come downstairs?”

Both Tommy Jarvis and his younger brother Nicky clearly heard her words, yet neither made a movement toward the bedroom door. It had been months since either boy had been in the same room with their father. The abuse allegations, and subsequent investigation proving them to be true, resulted in their removal from his care and placement with a foster family. For almost half a year they lived with a couple of retirees named Ed and Edna Williamson. In spite of their comically similar first names, the Williamsons proved to be decent, caring people — not perfect people by any means, but good people — the kind of people Tommy and Nicky barely believed existed anymore. Neither boy had forgotten about their father, yet at the same time they were only now beginning to settle in to their new life with the Williamsons. Things were easier for them here, quieter and certainly a lot less painful. The truth of the matter was that neither boy found the idea of introducing their father back into their lives even remotely appetizing. A week and a half before, a social worker for the state sat the pair down, telling them that Chris had been attending his meetings, that he was sober, and remorseful, that he was making great strides, and was anxious to see them again. Of the two, Nicky was slightly more open to the idea of reuniting with their father, but then Nicky’s past experiences with the old man were quite different from Tommy’s.

The memories – the awful, stinging memories –just recently began melting away for the fourteen year old Tommy Jarvis. What would happen now though? What would happen, when after all these months, Tommy came face to face with his father? Would the very old, very thick anger boil up from wherever he’d managed to shove it down deep inside his belly? Would the pain attached to those memories like a nasty parasite feeding off a half-starved host prove too much to bear? There were some questions in life for which one simply didn’t want answers. For Tommy Jarvis, these were those very

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8. Reviews at EP: The Lightning Conductor

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By: Melody, on 10/10/2010
Blog: Redeeming Qualities (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  books, automobiles, 1900s, williamsons, Vintage Books, reviewsatep, Vintage Fiction, Add a tag

My October guest post is up at Edwardian Promenade: The Lightning Conductor, by everyone’s favorite husband-and-wife novel-writing team, A.M. and C.N. Williamson.

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9. Strong Women?

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By: Melody, on 8/18/2010
Blog: Redeeming Qualities (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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A commenter on my post at Edwardian Promenade asked for recommendations of Edwardian Era novels with strong female characters. I thought I’d repost my reply here, along with a request for recommendations from you guys. There are undoubtedly not enough strong female characters in early 20th century popular fiction, but with our combined knowledge, I’m sure we can put together a longer list than this.

I have a few recommendations, none of which are exactly in the right period. I hope they help anyway.
The first book featuring Emma McChesney was published in, I think, 1915. Mrs. McChesney is probably the strongest character I’ve come across in early 20th century fiction, period.

A Woman Named Smith, from 1919, is one of my favorite books, mostly because the heroine, Sophy, discovers over the course of the book that she’s a lot stronger and more capable than she thought.

Lady Peggy O’Malley is from 1915-ish, and her book is in part a WWI one. Her family is horrible, but she rises above them, and retains her spunk and pluckiness almost until the last page.

Lois Cayley is a self-proclaimed adventuress from…sometime between 1895 and 1900. She becomes a maid, a bicycle advertisement, a typist, and a reporter, and although the book bogs down towards the end, the earlier parts make up for it.

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James said, on 8/19/2010 8:51:00 AM

Would “A Girl of the Limberlost” count in that area? I’ve only read it once some years back and the main girl character was very different from others in that time period due to her background, settings and method of self reliance. That book must have had some influence overseas since one of the schoolgirls in Brazil’s girl boarding school books speaks of wanting to be like her.

Another possibility is “Elizabeth and her German Garden”. She seems to be quite stong willed but in between the lines it seems that her family life is a bother to her. Platonic or strained marriage? Taking almost no interest in her children, personal or due to the common practice of having a nursemaid for young children back then?

Melody said, on 8/19/2010 10:35:00 AM

Elizabeth sounds like a good one.

I had actually dismissed A Girl of the Limberlost as a possibility, but maybe I shouldn’t have — it really depends on how you define “strong female characters”. My definitions tend to be on the narrow side, but Elnora is stronger than most, and if we count her, we can probably also count The Swamp Angel from Freckles

kali said, on 8/19/2010 8:32:00 PM

Good old Lucy Maud Montgomery springs to mind. Also in the kids book arena: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Oh, and Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer. Although I suppose the setting is in the late 1890s so doesn’t quite fit the window.

Melody said, on 8/20/2010 6:25:00 AM

I got the impression that the original commenter at Edwardian Promenade wasn’t looking for kids books, but I could be wrong. It’s interesting that it’s so much easier to find strong female characters in kids books–I’m looking over at my collection of children’s books, and even though boys’ books predominate, the are independent, resourceful girls all over the place.

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10. I hate posting to apologize for not posting

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By: Melody, on 7/19/2010
Blog: Redeeming Qualities (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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But that’s what this is.  I seem to have been focusing on the visual lately: art books, comic books, television shows, etc. Also I’ve been reading Nero Wolfe again, which I guess is always dangerous.

Can anyone tempt me back to the wonderful world of pre-1930 popular fiction? I’d love recommendations, especially for early motoring novels, like From the Car Behind, and most of the Williamsons’ output.

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anshika said, on 7/19/2010 9:37:00 AM

Have you read any Ethel M. Dell’s??? The critics hated her.but she was among the most popular authors of the 20s.and her books are a bit over the top….but at least she compares favourably with Eleanor Gly….Most are pretty awful..but her style’s not bad…Iread something called Charles Rex ages ago and a couple of short story collections

James said, on 7/19/2010 1:25:00 PM

More Nero Wolfe is never a bad thing. Too bad that they extended the copyright thing as I think the first novels would just be out of copyright by now. I see that you discovered the Torchy books, unfortunately the non Torchy stuff by the same author isn’t as good.

I did just finish two books recently. “About Peggy Saville” and “More About Peggy”. They were OK reads with my version having an amusing introduction about how boys would actually get more of the novels than the girls. One thing that jumps out at you while reading them is how rigid the social class system in England was back then and how commonplace servants were even for the middle class folks. You notice the Colonialism thinking going during the heights of the British Empire especially regarding status.

I’m not sure if you have read Angela Brazil’s school stories but I just started reading them but they are a lot of fun so far. I do like reading boarding school stories though. You might also reread Understood Besty since you have probably forgotten how the story went by now.

Jane said, on 7/19/2010 2:39:00 PM

Oh, I vote for the Automobile Girls, if you haven’t already – I’m really curious about the series!

mystrygirl87 said, on 7/19/2010 7:25:00 PM

Have you ever read “Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim? I’m not sure if it’s available online but it’s been reprinted a lot.

Melody said, on 7/20/2010 6:22:00 AM

I’ve actually been meaning to read Ethel M. Dell for four or five years, believe it or not. I read an article about her, Glyn, and E.M. Hull, and I managed to get to the other two, but not Dell. I think the one the article talked about was The Way of an Eagle.

Melody said, on 7/20/2010 6:30:00 AM

The problem with Nero Wolfe is that once I start, I can’t stop. Those books have a disturbing tendency to eat my life.

I’m sorry to hear that Sewell Ford’s non-Torchy books aren’t as good. I guess I’ll take them off my reading list.

I’ve read a few Angela Brazil books–I prefer L.T. Meade, but Brazil does better names for her characters than pretty much anyone. And I have reread Understood Betsy recently enough to remember what happens in it. The Peggy books look like fun, though, and I’ll definitely check them out.

Melody said, on 7/20/2010 6:33:00 AM

I’m curious about the Automobile Girls as well! But I also really like reading series from the beginning, and PG doesn’t have the first one. Maybe I’ll try the Stratemeyer Syndicate’s Motor Girls series instead?

Melody said, on 7/20/2010 6:39:00 AM

I’ve heard of The Enchanted April, and it’s definitely available online. It sounds really interesting, although I keep hearing “von Arnim” and thinking of this awesome feminist fairy tale.

Cathlin Barry said, on 7/20/2010 12:30:00 PM

The Chauffeur and the Chaperone by A M and C N Williamson is really good. Two girls inherit a houseboat and tour Holland in it.

Rudder Grange, by Frank R. Stockton, is about a newly married couple who move into a houseboat.

Anything by Louis Tracy.

Melody said, on 7/22/2010 9:16:00 AM

I’ve read The Chauffeur and the Chaperone, and it’s not one of my favorite Williamsons–it’s a little too travelogue-y, and I wasn’t particularly interested in most of the characters.

I looked up Louis Tracy and he sounds interesting. Do you recommend any particular books?

Cathlin Barry said, on 7/22/2010 10:01:00 AM

I really liked One Wonderful Night by Louis Tracy. It’s about a man who, on his first night in New York, finds a marriage license in the pocket of a murdered man’s coat and goes to find the woman whose name is on the license.

The Stowaway Girl is about a girl who stows away on a ship to avoid marrying a man she hates. She doesn’t realize her uncle has arranged for the ship to be sunk so he can collect insurance.

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11. A note on Williamsons

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By: Melody, on 5/24/2010
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Can we talk about the Williamsons? I am getting frustrated. Too many of their books involve people disguising themselves as chauffeurs. And, on reflection, I don’t think I’ve read anything by them that didn’t involve anyone going incognito. It’s a problem.

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anshika said, on 5/25/2010 9:44:00 AM

I knowww….at least 6 or 7…..i guess its some sort of Freudian fixation

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12. Lady Betty Across the Water

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By: Melody, on 5/20/2010
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So, Lady Betty Across the Water is by the Williamsons, but for the second Williamson book in a row, I was constantly reminded of Elinor Glyn. And this time, it wasn’t just a general feeling of Glynishness: my major recurring thought was, “this happened in Elizabeth Visits America, didn’t it?”

The answer, for about fifty percent of the events of Lady Betty, is yes. But apparently Lady Betty came first. I’m…actually probably going to have to work at not resenting it for that. Not that Elizabeth Visits America is significantly better, or that I didn’t really enjoy Lady Betty. It’s just that Elizabeth so embodies the kind of character that she and Lady Betty both are, that Lady Betty is always going to seem like an imitation.

And really, she is: the Williamsons may have done the America thing first, but The Visits of Elizabeth came out in 1901, while as far as I can tell, Lady Betty first appeared in print in 1905.

I don’t really want to keep harping on this, but Lady Betty and Elizabeth really are two variations on the same theme (can anyone recommend a third, by the way?). They are both members of the English aristocracy, both young, sheltered and innocent, both released into society for the first time, and both narrating in an “out of the mouths of babes” kind of style. But the Williamsons are not Elinor Glyn, so where Elizabeth innocently reveals to the reader a lot more than she realizes about the scandalous goings-on of her relatives and friends, Betty’s narration is more about cutting through pretension with common sense. I like that.

I also like the secondary characters in Lady Betty Across the Water better than those in the Elizabeth books. Well, most of them, anyway. Sally Woodburn is a bit too much of a deus ex machina to ever come into her own as a character. Every time the plot suddenly seemed heavy-handed, the effect could be traced back to Sally Woodburn. But the people who aren’t Sally Woodburn are mostly pretty successful as characters. I suspect that this is because Betty actually likes a lot of people, while with Elizabeth you can always see Glyn’s cynicism showing through.

The Williamsons are never really cynical, even when they think they are, and that has disadvantages as well as advantages. Sometimes Lady Betty seems less innocent than wilfully dim.

See, there’s this guy traveling in steerage on the ship in which Lady Betty travels to America, and from the moment she talks about how handsome and gentlemanly he looks, it’s obvious that he’s the love interest. Pretty soon it’s also obvious that he isn’t as poor as Lady Betty thinks he is, and each time he shows up (or sends her an extravagant gift) she seems more stupid for not realizing that he’s actually a millionaire named Harborough disguising himself as a poor man in order to make sure Betty doesn’t just want him for his money. I mean, there a lot of hints. One or two would have been enough. No need to hit us over the head, Williamsons.

But really, I liked Lady Betty Across the Water a lot. Betty is almost as awesome as Peggy O’ Malley, except for the not being terribly bright thing, and Peggy is my favorite Williamson heroine ever. Actually, I guess Betty is pretty much what you would get if you crossed Peggy with Elizabeth and subtracted a few IQ points. And  Betty isn’t stupid all of the time.

It’s ridiculous. Every time I try to convey how mu

5 Comments on Lady Betty Across the Water, last added: 5/24/2010

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anshika said, on 5/20/2010 9:20:00 AM

this was my first williamson..i really enjoyed it

Cathlin Barry said, on 5/20/2010 9:52:00 AM

I really like the Williamsons’ books but I’ve only read a few of them. I’ll definitely give this one a try.

Azara said, on 5/22/2010 1:18:00 AM

I’ve just read this (on your recommendation) and really enjoyed it. Something about Elinor Glyn puts my teeth on edge, so I didn’t much like the works of hers I read; but I find the Wiliamsons’ more naive approach fun. Some of Lady Betty’s obtuseness can be excused by her sheltered upbringing, but she does come across as rather thick sometimes! I was interested by the over-the-top luxury described in Newport – did this actually exist or were the Williamsons indulging themselves here?

Melody said, on 5/24/2010 6:58:00 AM

It’s definitely a fun one. I sort of wish it had been my first, and that I hadn’t come to it already having read others in which people disguise themselves as chauffeurs.

Melody said, on 5/24/2010 7:14:00 AM

I can absolutely see how Elinor Glyn might set someone’s teeth on edge, but I think she’s hilarious. And the Elizabeth books are pretty different from the all-around excessiveness of books like Three Weeks.

I don’t know a lot about Newport, but there’s an article on it here at Edwardian Promenade, and it sounds like the exaggeration is slight. (Also, do you think Potter Parker might be named after the Mrs. Potter Palmer who managed to break into Newport society?)

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13. American Bestsellers, 1900-1917

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By: Melody, on 10/6/2009
Blog: Redeeming Qualities (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  books, bestseller, 1900s, 1910s, eleanorhallowellabbott, williamsons, georgebarrmccutcheon, genestrattonporter, eleanorhporter, jeanwebster, maryrobertsrinehart, mauricehewlett, Add a tag

I’ve spent some time lately looking at lists of bestsellers from the early twentieth century. I probably won’t ever read all of these books, but the list seems like a good source of recommendations. And Project Gutenberg, as it turns out, has the list handily formatted with links to the available etexts. So here’s that, [...]

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14. The Port of Adventure

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By: Melody, on 9/27/2009
Blog: Redeeming Qualities (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  1910s, williamsons, elinorglyn, books, adventure, romance, Add a tag

The Port of Adventure is mostly typical Williamsons — part romance, part travelogue, and a dash of adventure — but something about it leaves an Elinor Glyn-ish taste in my mouth. Maybe it’s the girl from Europe (sort of) traveling through the U.S., as in Elizabeth Visits America, or the unhappy marriage to a European [...]

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