Gaudy Night Part I

 Gaudy Night is one of the most famous of Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey novels… It has been very well liked by women.. and encouraged a lot of girls to try for University….

It is set in a women’s college in Oxford in the 1930s.  Sayers herself went to University there and loved her time at Oxford.  She made many women friends, some of whom were also writers.  

The novel follows Harriet Vane, whom Peter has rescued from hanging, in Strong Poison.. She had been accused of killing her ex lover, Philip Boyes.. and Wimsey proved her innocence.  

Harriet has been busy with her writing over the 5 years since her trial, and has learned to live with the fact that she gets poison pen letters from people who think she was guilty…However Peter persists in asking her to marry him, but she keeps on refusing because she feels that she could not marry a man on a basis of gratitude..

She gets an invitation to a college “Gaudy”, a get together for former students, and decides to go, although she is a little afraid of facing her former tutors and fellow students. Her private life, including her affair with Boyes has been splashed all over the  papers…

Harriet visits for the Gaudy, and finds that the dons and her old friends are pleased to see her…But she receives an anonymous letter while she is at the college, and feels that even in Oxford, there are people who disapprove of her conduct.  She continues to see Peter Wimsey but cannot seem to either agree to marry him nor to break off the relationship.

Soon after her visit, she gets a communication from one of the dons, and realises that there are strange things going on there.  It appears that some of the students and dons had received anonymous letters nastily phrased, and various pranks have been played, which all seem to add up the the presence of a “cross between a poltergeist and a poison pen writer.”

The dons are worried that if this gets out, it will affect the reputation of educated women.   They beg Harriet to come and visit and see if she could find out what is causing this outburst of bizarre behaviour. 

A few More Scottish names...

 I’ve been meaning to write about Scottish names again…

A favourite of mine is Alistair, which is the Scottish version of Alexander..  It has become very popular in the past century and was also used in Walter Scott’s novels.
Catriona is the Scottish version of Catherine, and is used by Robert Louis Stevenson in the second part of his novel Kidnapped.  Its been very popular in Scotland and Ireland.

Cameron is now used for boys and girls and means “crooked nose”…

Donald is a slightly Anglicised version of “Domhnall” Which means world rule…

Fraser is a Scottish surname, and the meaning of it seems to be lost, but it has become very popular in the UK and USA…  There is also of course the variation Frasier.. as in Frasier Crane, the star of the TV sitcom

more to follow! 

Ellis Peters Part I

 Ellis Peters is the pen name of the author Edith Pargeter who created the Cadfael novels, which are set in Wales and England, in the time of the Civil War between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda…

She was born in Shropshire in 1913, and was the daughter of a clerk in a local business.  She had a good education in a Church of England school. She was not well off enough to attend university, but she was a keen learner and taught herself a good deal.  She wanted to be a writer, but took a job before the war as a chemists assistant, which gave her knowledge about medicines and poison.  During World War Two, she went into the WRENS  and worked as an administrative officer, reaching the rank of Petty Officer.  She continued to write often under pseudonyms, and after the war she dedicated herself to full time writing.  She became an expert on medieval history and wrote historical stories, r omances and detective fiction.

She was of Welsh ancestry and chose to set her most famous mysteries in the borderlands of Wales and England… With the background of the Anarchy, the war between Stephen and Maud….It was a violent time, and the monastery where Cadfael works is a haven for orphans and the sick.  Cadfael investigates crimes, because as the monastery herbalist, he has a knowledge of drugs and poisons.

 

Charlotte Bronte Next Part

 After a brief period at Miss Wooler's school,  Charlotte took on several jobs as governess. Charlotte did not enjoy governess work.  Although she was not so reclusive as Emily she was shy and dis not like being away from home..  She was also proud and touchy, and not good with children.  She was conscious of her status as a “lady”, since she was a clergyman’s daughter but her poverty and lack of connections made her feel uneasy in the houses of the the well to do.  She suffered a good deal as did many governesses, because she was above the servants in status but not considered pert of the family by the employers.

Charlotte resented the snubs from wealthy but nouveau riche employers and longed to be at home in Haworth and free to write. By the age of 26 she began to plan for a new kind of life. Since there were few options for genteel girls, other than teaching, one of the best ways of becoming a teacher would be to own one’s own school.  Charlotte persuaded her aunt Branwell to lend her and Emily some money so that they could go abroad to study and learn languages to as to have a particular skill to offer, if they could open a school at the parsonage.

Miss Branwell had a small fortune which she intended to leave to her nieces since it was believed that Branwell as the boy would be able to support himself.. but she was willing to help the girls go abroad to a school in Belgium.  It wasn’t easy for girls to have adventures in Victorian England but it was an adventure for Charlotte to travel to a foreign country and study there. Emily cared less about real life than her sisters did, and sought her own adventures in her mind, rather than in reality.  She wrote about wars and loves in her stories but essentially her mind was grounded in Yorkshire and she was mostly happiest with the mundane life she led there.  She did not want to go to Belgium but she agreed to accompany Charlotte and improve her education.

The sisters chose Belgium because it was cheap and because Charlotte’s friends, the Taylor sisters were studying there, and it aroused Charlotte’s desire to learn more.

The Pension Heger was a good school, the girls were not ill treated or half starved as they had been in England… but there was a lack of privacy and they felt ill at ease among so many foreign girls.  Both found it hard to command growing girls and teach them but they both managed to subdue their classes and do some teaching.. in return for learning French and other studies. At first Charlotte enjoyed the change, throwing herself into her work and studies and visiting friends among the English community in Belgium.  Emily worked hard, as she had a lot of studying to make up, but she disliked the place more than her older sister did, and refused to go out to mix with the English residents.

Some of their lessons were taught by Constantin Heger, the husband of the School’s owner and mistress, Madame Heger.  He was a handsome magnetic highly intelligent man who enjoyed teaching… and was an excellent instructor for Charlotte.. but he and Emily did not get on so well.

Neither Charlotte nor Emily liked the Catholic atmosphere and they disliked the way that order was kept by what they saw as Madame Heger spying on her pupils  and teachers. In spite of the regime’s being gentler than a lot of English schools it seemed unEnglish to them…

 Charlottes time in Brussels gave her more education and also provided her with experiences that she worked into her writing..  Villette was a fictionalized version of her life in Belgium.. and her love for M Heger.  She enjoyed her early months there mixing with her friends in the English community and learning.. but when she fell in love with Heger, it was a tragic event that damaged her peace of mind for many years.  She was a naive young woman and did not realize that her feelings for her teacher were developing and changing from friendship to love.. She and Emily had to go home for a time, due to the death' of her aunt Branwell. Emily had hated being away from home so she decided not to return to the school.  Mme Heger invited Charlotte back but when she returned, Madame, an experienced woman, realized that her teacher had now fallen innocently in love with M Heger....

So she began to treat Charlotte as a stranger, having been friendly to her before.  Charlotte was horrifed when she realised why Mme Heger was being so cool with her and after  a few bitterly unhappy months, she left the school and went back home to Yorkshire....