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    The Making of a Marchioness and Methods of Lady Walderhurst
    The Making of a Marchioness and Methods of Lady Walderhurst
    The Making of a Marchioness and Methods of Lady Walderhurst
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Making of a Marchioness and Methods of Lady Walderhurst

    Written by Frances Hodgson Burnett

    Narrated by Bobbie Frohman and Full Cast

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In early 1901, fifteen years after Little Lord Fauntleroy and ten years before the Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote The Making of a Marchioness. She followed this short novel in the spring of the same year with the sequel, The Methods of Lady Walderhurst. The satisfying Cinderella quality of the first book which illustrated the harsh realism of Edwardian society, combines with the exciting melodramatic developments in the second book to create an intriguing story that continues to entertain us today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlcazar Audio Works
    Release dateJan 1, 2003
    ISBN9780974680620
    The Making of a Marchioness and Methods of Lady Walderhurst
    Author

    Frances Hodgson Burnett

    Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849--1924) was born in Cheetham, England. After her father's death in 1852, the family found itself in dire financial straits and in 1865 immigrated to the United States, settling near Knoxville, Tennessee. Frances began writing to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines from the age of 19. While the novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) made her a well-known writer of children's fiction, her romantic adult novels were also very popular. From 1898 to 1907, Burnett resided at Great Maytham Hall, a country house in Kent, England. It was the sprawling manor's walled garden that provided the inspiration for The Secret Garden, now considered a classic of English children's literature.

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    Reviews for The Making of a Marchioness and Methods of Lady Walderhurst

    3.5/5

    145 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I am always impressed by Burnett's ability to write sweet stories without being twee or saccharine. This is what Edith Wharton would write on anti-depressants.
    • 4/5
      The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett; (3 1/2*)Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of my favorite children & Y/A authors. I love The Secret Garden, Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess is my ultimate favorite book for the young, bar none! So I was a little surprised to find that I did not actually love this book though I liked it a great deal.I found it to be a beautiful period-piece love story. The main character is a strong woman.....for her life and times. She overcomes hardships in her early years and treachery later for the love of her life.I do think that I will want to read it more than this once in order to appreciate all of the little nuances. (And I may appreciate it more on a reread.) In what seems to be a world of misery and chaos this mid-century novel provides a safe place to hide for a while.I does have one weird moment but I don't want to spoil that for you. However in the end it all comes together.I enjoyed the story with it's wee yet surprising twists & turns. I found it an interesting study of the times. It, IMHO, is not brilliantly written but it is a captivating read.
    • 4/5
      So wonderfully absurd as to be hilarious. I'm not sure if it was intended to be satirical when first published but given that the heroine is described as "ridiculous" on multiple occasions, I can reach no other conclusion.
    • 4/5
      A lovely little book made even more lovely by being a Persephone edition. This was my first purchase of a Persephone book and I love the size, feel, and look of these publications. The story itself was rather predictable, but also a comforting, familiar read. Emily Fox-Seton is a wonderful person, living on a shoestring budget. She meets wealthy Lord Walderhurst who is enamored of her generous personality. They marry. At first I was surprised at how quickly this happened since I'm used to marriage being the end game of this sort of novel. Instead, the novel focuses on the fact that wealthy Lord Walderhurst is in his 50s with no direct heir. The next-in-line to inherit is Captain Osborn. His wife Hester is pregnant. They are devastated that Lord Walderhurst has married and could produce an heir of his own. When Walderhurst goes away for an extended business trip, Emily has to deal with the danger of their jealousy on her own. I liked this. It's not remarkable in any way, but it was fun to read.
    • 2/5
      Not nearly as good as the writer's other books.I got really fed up of being told time and again what a nice, helpful person Emily was.The character could have stood on her own two feet if the writer hadn't tried to over-egg the pudding.I got to the end of the first volume, but I didn't bother reading the second.
    • 4/5
      Emily Fox-Seton is a woman who has all the correct breeding, but no family and no money to go with it. What is a woman to do? In her Pollyanna way, she does very well, thank you. With all the wonderful clothing and scenery descriptions, this is like reading about Downton Abbey. A bit more subdued in the sex and drama parts perhaps.Written in 1901, this book has its share of what we would call inappropriate ideas of the role of a woman and perhaps racial attitudes. If you can understand that it is a book of its time, you will enjoy it I think. In fact, although I rolled my eyes at some of the scenarios, in the end, it won me over with some excellent characterizations. Can't go into specifics or it would be all spoilerish.
    • 4/5
      That old term Charming applies to this book, and to Emily Fox Seton. A main character whose chief attribute is kindness, imagine that!Great intro and afterword to Persephone edition, both point out the depiction of the Edwardian marriage market, and the tough realities of life for women of all classes actually.
    • 3/5
      This is a queer, strange little book. I was eager to read this because, like many people, I adore Burnett's Children's book. This book, of course, was to be more serious and adult. However, I was neither a sentimental romance or a melodrama commenting on marriage - but a strange mix of the two. At time I enjoyed it, and then, I would hate it. I'm still not certain how I feel about it. The ending was abrupt and odd and startling. It felt like it should have come on, but it didn't. I'm not sure I would recommend this book.
    • 3/5
      This book certainly had its charms, and I can understand why it might have been a popular women's novel in its day (it was originally published in 1901). It tells the story of a refined but impoverished woman in her thirties, Miss Emily Fox-Seton, who scratches out a living by assisting her betters to shop wisely and plan parties while remaining obligingly in the background. Just as disaster seems about to befall (her kindly landlady and her daughter plan to give up the house where Emily rooms), wonder of wonders, she receives an unexpected marriage proposal that catapults her into the upper echelon of society. Lord Waldehurst has been won over by Emily's good taste, gentle nature, and unprepossessing nature--undoubtedly the dream of many an aging spinster in 1901.But, alas, it is at this point that the novel falls a bit short for the 21st-century reader. Emily's kindness and naiveté seem to know no bounds. She tries to befriend Alec Osbourne (who has been Lord Waldehurst's sole heir for the past 30 years or so) and his pregnant half-Indian wife, even coaxing her husband--who is about to leave for business in India--to allow her to furnish a house on the estate grounds for their use. It never enters her head that the Osbournes might see her as a potential threat to the property, money, and title that they hope to inherit, and she is hurt and confused by their often surly manners and Hortense's frequent angry outbursts. (When her trusty maid tells Emily that she fears that Amira, Hortense's ayah, is up to no good, Emily encourages her to read Uncle Tom's Cabin to improve her view of "the blacks.") Following several near-misses--accidents that would have been fatal--plus a confession from Hortense that she sometimes hates the now-pregnant Emily and that Alec wants to kill her, Emily feels that the best solution to her dilemma is to take Hortense's advice to "go away" to stay safe until her child is born. Emily's goodness is just too unbelievable; I started to agree with Alec's estimation that she was just "a big fool," and I wanted to smack her back into reality. And the Osbournes and Amira fall into caricatures of villains so evil that I expected even Hortense and Amira to be twirling long black moustachios.I'm giving the book three stars as a period piece and an example of early 20th century women's novels, and perhaps with some bonus points for Persephone's quite lovely cover. Read it when you are in the mood for pure fluff.
    • 5/5
      Short novella The Making of a Marchioness is a very good Cinderella-type story (5 stars). The sequel, The Methods of Lady Walderhurst, has a rather uneven plot, but I still really enjoyed it (4 stars).
    • 3/5
      This book went by quickly, like many other Persephone books that I’ve read. The prose flowed pretty well and the plot kept me reading. However, I thought there were times when the story dipped into sentimentality and a stereotypical Indian character played a large part in the latter half of the book. The first part of the book is a Cinderella story, the second part is an almost Gothic melodrama.At the beginning of the book, Emily Fox-Seton is a well-born and well-educated no-longer-young woman who must work for a living. She runs errands for and organizes the lives of members of the aristocracy and others and must maintain her genteel appearance on a small income. Emily could be a bit much at times, with her enthusiasm manifested in an overuse of italics. However, I thought she was interesting because she differed from a number of other poor heroines who eventually get married. She wasn’t an intelligent, introverted plain Jane or a gorgeous and witty girl whose only barrier to marriage is a lack of fortune. At the same time, though, she wasn’t dull – in fact, her optimism and enthusiasm tended to make others pleasant and gregarious. Also, Emily has a rather dated but appropriate for the time view of marriage – it’s mainly something that will support a woman and is generally obtained by being beautiful, though being charming and witty helps. Romance is not something she thinks about and she’s not a woman who will stubbornly hold out for the right man, but rather than one who is decent and there.Emily is invited to help Lady Maria Bayne entertain at her country house and settles into a lady-of-all-work role while Lady Maria’s cousin, the much sought-after Marquis of Walderhurst, seems to waffle between two eligible women, beautiful, sweet Lady Agatha – whose exalted social position and lack of money means she must marry soon or be pushed aside for her younger sisters – and a sharp, sparkling American heiress. The marquis chooses Emily, but has very unromantic reasons for doing so, which was rather refreshing. He partly wants to spite his good-for-nothing heir and wants to choose a woman who will not require much fussing – Emily certainly fits the bill. It’s not an ecstatic happily-ever-after, love-at-first-sight end, but it might as well be given Emily’s grateful reaction. In the second half, Emily is now the Marquise of Walderhurst, but is menaced by the displaced heir of the title, his Indian-born Anglo wife, and her Indian maid. There were some annoying stereotypes in this portion – the displaced, violent man and the Indian woman who is emotional but not rational, a nursemaid to the Anglo woman, and almost “magic” – able to heal and kill. Emily also becomes increasingly dependent and helpless in the second half, culminating with another too-sentimental penultimate scene, where her martyr behavior is at an extreme. A fast and engrossing read, but some irritations.
    • 3/5
      This book is a strange concoction of social comedy and high melodrama, following the story of a kind, innocent woman, Emily Fox-Seton, who manages to conquer the heart of the perpetually eye-glass-wearing Marquis of Walderhurst. It is very uneven in plot and style, with some terrible cliches and over-the-top situations which sometimes even the author does not seem to take seriously. There are nevertheless some delightful scenes, like Emily's fish shopping errand or the description of her cheaply furnished ( but extremely neat) room in the lodging house.
    • 4/5
      I can't tell from the kindle version that I read whether there are two separate books or just one. It seems there is just one book with the above titles. I enjoyed it very much; thought it was somewhat like a Trollope novel. Well written, good story.
    • 5/5
      Emily Fox-Seton is poor—not desperately so, but genteel. She’s a simple soul really, content in the simple pleasures of life, hating the life she was born into but not knowing that she deserves much better. For work, she takes on odd jobs for wealthy women. When Lady Maria invites her to a country house-party, Emily meets the marquis, Lord Walderhurst, who, to her surprise, asks her to marry him. What follows is “the making of a marchioness,” as Emily adjusts to her new life. There, she meets two of Lord Walderhurst’s relatives—his disgruntled heir presumptive, Captain Osborn, and wife Hester, just back from India.Frances Hodgson Burnett is better known for some of her other books (including The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy), but The Making of a Marchioness is a fine novel as well. Emily is a bit too perfect, sometimes, but she’s a sweet woman, blissfully ignorant of the bad feelings and thoughts of those around her. You just can’t help but to like her. According to the preface, the author called Emily “a sort of Cinderella… with big feet instead of little ones.” And indeed, this is a kind of Cinderella story. Walderhurst isn’t a Prince Charming, though—he married not so much for love as for comfort, and he’s taciturn at the best of times. Still, he loves Emily in his own strange way.This is a story that tries so hard not to be sentimental that it is, in a way. Like some of her other books, The Making of a Marchioness is about class—the pretension or lack thereof to enter into high society. It’s also, on a way, about contrasts; nobody could be more different than Emily than Hester, and nobody could be more different from the very English maid Jane Cupp than Hester’s ayah Ameerah. The novel was published in 1901, and in some ways it suffers from late Victorian and Edwardian prejudices towards Indians (there’s even an Uncle Tom’s Cabin reference in there somewhere). But if you can overlook this, this really is a charming little book.This is Persephone #29