Belinda by Maria Edgeworth (thoughts)

This book took me completely by surprise! I expected Belinda to be a flighty, thoughtless girl ever in need of rescuing (a la Evelina or an Eliza Haywood character). Instead, I found to my delight a smart, well-principled heroine willing to stand her ground in the face of society’s high ranking people and determined to make people’s lives better. I was rooting for her the entire novel, and I love the way that Edgeworth used societal expectations (e.g. people thinking her forthrightness was artifice and interpreting actions accordingly) to keep the plot going. And what a plot it is! In addition to Belinda, whom her aunt has sent to London with an expectation to marry well (she’s quite poor), there’s her hostess Lady Delacour whose high success in society and glimmering, fascinating exterior hide her deep unhappiness; much of the book deals with Belinda’s attempts to convince Lady Delacour that holding to good principles is better than being popular and that it’s never too late to turn a life around. This makes it sound more moralising than it is; while Belinda is certainly shocked by some of Lady Delacour’s past romps (there’s even a story about a lady dressing as a man: shock!), her desire to help is genuine. The novel never feels saccharine, and I flew through the pages. Edgeworth’s sharp observations on the dissipations of the wealthy are wonderful, and her racial awareness is shockingly modern (this was published in 1801): a West Indian Creole character is portrayed as a truly good man and his African servant ends up marrying an English farm girl. The whole reading was delicious, and I find it difficult to imagine any lover of classics not taking to this one; especially readers who admire the independent spirit of characters like Elizabeth Bennett and Jane Eyre (oh yeah, I went there) or enjoy social commentary mixed in with their fiction.

Suggested Companion Reads (with links to my thoughts)

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Since I already mentioned it!)
• Chrysalis by Kim Todd (A biography of a fascinating eighteenth century German woman, a contemporary of Maria Edgeworth’s, who became a scientist and artist focusing on moths.)
• The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen (Another novel by an Anglo-Irish female author that I loved and that had me drawing an Austen comparison.)
• Lovesick by Angeles Mastretta (This story also features a strong young girl who sticks to her guns no matter what.)
• Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier (Some of Lady Delacour’s stories, and friends, reminded me of the heroine of this historical novel, who is a wealthy society woman who comes to question her London life and high jinx and empty friendships.)

Lucy the Giant by Sherri Smith (A complete different setting and situation-modern Alaska and a teenage runaway girl who becomes a crab fisherman-but like Belinda Lucy finds herself without family and needing to forge her own way and figure out her values in a new milieu.)