The Clever Woman of the Family
1865
In 1860s Britain, women outnumber men dramatically, and not all can expect to marry. This is the world of Rachel Curtis: clever, opinionated, and desperate for a purpose beyond the drawing-room. When her cousin Fanny, a widow with young children, arrives at their seaside home, Rachel sees her mission at last. She will educate the boys, mold them into something meaningful, prove that a woman can matter. But Yonge, writing with sharp ironic precision, shows exactly how this noble crusade collides with the narrow world around it. The results are both comic and devastating. Yonge was writing adult novels far removed from her famous children's books, and this is her most provocative work. It predates the "New Woman" novels of the 1890s by decades, making it a foundational text in the genre. Yet the novel refuses easy heroism. Rachel's determination is real, but so is her blindness; her ambition is admirable, but also self-regarding. The book captures something true about the first feminists: their longing, their contradictions, and the trap of seeking significance in a world designed to contain them. For readers who enjoy Victorian fiction that asks uncomfortable questions about progress and its costs.
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“A Keith ca' ye her! It's a queer kin' o' Keiths she's comed o', nae better nor Englishers that haena sae muckle's set fit in our bonny Scotland; an' sic scriechin', skirlin' tongues as they hae, a body wad need to be gleg i' the uptak to understan' a word they say. Tak' my word for't, Maister Colin, it's no a'thegither luve for his lordship's grey hairs that gars yon gilpy lassock seek to become my Leddy Keith.””
— Charlotte M. Yonge
“One great pleasure they enjoyed together was bathing. The Homestead possessed a little cove of its own under the rocks, where there was a bathing-house, and full perfection of arrangement for young ladies' aquatic enjoyment, in safety and absolute privacy. Rachel's vigorous strength and health had been greatly promoted by her familiarity with salt water, and Bessie was in ecstasies at the naiad performances they shared together on the smooth bit of sandy shore, where they dabbled and floated fearlessly. One morning, when they had been down very early to be beforehand with the tide, which put a stop to their enjoyment long before the breakfast hour, Bessie asked if they could not profit by their leisure to climb round the edge of the cliff's instead of returning by the direct path, and Rachel agreed, with the greater pleasure, that it was an enterprise she had seldom performed. Very beautiful, though adventurous, was the walk”
— Charlotte M. Yonge
“No, I am not sorry for having offended him. I don't mind him; but Ailie, how little one knows! All the angry and bitter feelings that I thought burnt out for ever when I lay waiting for death, are stirred up as hotly as they were long ago. The old self is here as strong as ever!””
— Charlotte M. Yonge
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Yonge, Charlotte M.. The Clever Woman of the Family. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-clever-woman-of-the-family-61002261-1151-490a-8a40-b38b8d8141d7.Yonge, C. M. (1865). The Clever Woman of the Family. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-clever-woman-of-the-family-61002261-1151-490a-8a40-b38b8d8141d7Yonge, Charlotte M.. The Clever Woman of the Family. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-clever-woman-of-the-family-61002261-1151-490a-8a40-b38b8d8141d7.
