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 ( )

I wanted so much to like this book and indeed I enjoyed Part 1 very much. The introduction mentions that the two parts of the novel were originally written separately and it really shows. Part 1 has a lovely, fairy-tale like quality in which Emily Fox-Seton, the unfailingly kind and obliging protagonist, reaches her lowest ebb only to be raised up to heights of which she dared not dream. So far so good.

I was unable to read far into Part 2 because aspects of the author's style which had previously irritated became too maddening to overcome. I don't know how many times we were reminded that Emily was not intelligent (but not stupid, mind!), that she was childlike/ish, or that Lady Maria was selfish, or that Walderhurst lacked self-awareness. Perhaps it wasn't actually that many, but I felt bombarded by the authorial voice TELLING me things about the characters which I really would prefer to have been shown. The result was that I found it very difficult to care about the characters at all and thus died my interest in reading further. ( )

2850 The Making of a Marchioness, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (read 10 Mar 1996) This is an excellent and entrancing book. Burnett is a kind of poor man's Henry James. I found it exquisitely written, and the plot is not even predictable, except as to the happy ending--which was the ending devoutly desired by me. This book is described as Burnett's best. It is indeed very good. This is one of a series of 19th century obscure or neglected novels, published as "The Doughty Library." ( )

Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1901 fairy-tale for adults, with a real villain. By the author of 'The Secret Garden' and 'A Little Princess'.