The Rector's Daughter (Virago Modern Classics)

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Flora M Mayor, like the woman she created in this novel was the daughter of a clergyman. However according to Janet Morgan in her introduction to this edition, Flora was nothing like her heroine Mary Jocelyn. I was rather delighted to learn that Flora seemed to have had quite a bit of spirit about her. But, Dora, don’t you think there is a Love ‘Which alters not with Time’s brief hours and days, / But bears it out even to the edge of Doom’?” Flora Macdonald Mayor (20 October 1872, Kingston Hill, Surrey – 28 January 1932, Hampstead, London), was an English novelist and short story writer, who published under the name F. M. Mayor. One winter day when Dora Redland had come to stay with Ella, she and Mary met for a walk. Mary suddenly started the subject. “I wish you would tell me something about love. I should think no one ever reached my age and knew so little, except of love in books. Father has never mentioned love, and Aunt Lottie treated it as if it ought not to exist. There were you and Will, but I was so young for me age I never took it in.” The endpapers from a printed silk fabric manufactured in Manchester for the Calico Printers' Association in 1924

At one stage, Mary has to take care of a sister that suffers from a mental disability and when the poor sibling dies, the heroine is devastated and she thinks her father does not show any feelings for his departed child…later, once she would have access to his papers and diary, she will be surprised, confounded to learn that she had not known her parent so well, because regarding this tragedy and other events, the Rector has chosen to not show what he feels and he has been quite critical of his own actions…The feeling of pity for Mary is completely overpowering. Even though Mary never complained of her lot in life and never demanded pity. This characteristic of Mary’s personality, for me, added greatly to the poignancy of the book. Persephone Book No. 140 is in one way quite untypical of a Persephone book, but in another it is extremely representative. The Rector’s Daughter (1924) by FM Mayor (1872-1932) is untypical because, although it fell out of print in the decades after it was first published, it was reprinted by Penguin in the 1970s and since then has not technically been out of print, being both a Penguin and a Virago Modern Classic. Yet this certainly does not mean it is widely available. For the reason Flora Mayor’s book is a representative Persephone book is because it really is a neglected work of genius (the word used by several of the original reviewers); so we felt this extraordinary and truly classic novel had to be part of the Persephone collection. No one could accuse F M Mayor of writing a cheerful story, but she certainly wrote a beautifully poignant one, and one I found very readable. I have been circling around this novel and The Third Miss Symons for some time, knowing already that there would be a degree of sadness to the stories of stagnant lives that Mayor appears to have particularly written about. I have Simon and Karen’s 1924 club to thank for giving me the nudge to read The Rector’s Daughter my first F M Mayor novel. It is all beautifully written and the characterisation is superb. None of the characters are one-dimensional. It would have been easy to make Robert Herbert unsympathetic, but he isn’t. It would also have been easy to make Kathy empty headed and entirely frivolous, but she is not. The minor characters are also strong. Mary herself is a tremendously complex and interesting character; there is a lot of repressed feelings and emotions between her and her father, which are barely spoken of. But Mary is so very believable and one does feel great sympathy for her; this is what makes the novel so devastating. Susan Hill is a strong advocate of this book, calling it one of the best of the neglected classics. She is right; it is a masterpiece. Thanks to another Goodreads reviewer, I've just remembered that I bought the book after it was praised by Susan Hill in Howards End Is On the Landing.

I expect Berthoud and Elderkin chose this as a book for one’s thirties because it’s about a late bloomer who hasn’t acquired the expected spouse and children and harbors secret professional ambitions. The struggle to find common ground with an ageing parent is a strong theme, as is the danger of an unequal marriage. Best not to say too much more about the plot itself, but I’d recommend this to readers of Elizabeth Taylor. I was also reminded strongly at points of A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence and Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s a short and surprising classic, one well worth rediscovering. Apart from the central plot, there were many details of the story that I enjoyed. Most of all the descriptions of the quiet life that Mary led – not completely devoid of pleasure. The books she read and her enjoyment of the passing of the seasons. There’s a particular paragraph that describes the books Mary enjoyed : You find this stupendous Magnum opus on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list https://www.theguardian.com/books/200... Who can thatbe coming down the road? Why, it’s the pretty little girl with the dark curls we saw yesterday when the Canon took me out a little walk – your dear father. Oh no, it’s not; now she comes nearer I see it’s notthe little girl with the dark curls. My sight isn’t quite as good as it was. No, she has red hair and spectacles. Dear me, whata plain little thing. Did you say she would be calling for the milk, dear? Or is this the little one you say helps Cook? Oh no, not that one, only ten; no, she would be rather young. Yes, whatthe girls are coming to. You say you don’t find a difficulty. Mrs. Barkham – my new lodgings; I told you about her, poor thing, she suffers so from neuralgia – she says the girls now – fancy her last girl wearing a pendant when she was waiting. Just a very plain brooch, no one would say a word against, costing half-a-crown or two shillings. I’ve given one myself to a servant many a time. Oh, that dear little robin – Mary, you mustlook – or is it a thrush? There, it’s gone. You’ve missed it. Perhaps we could see it out of the other window. Thank you, dear; if I could have your arm. Oh, I didn’t see the footstool. No, thank you, I didn’t hurt myself in the least; only that was my rheumatic elbow.”The Rector's Daughter was written by F.M. Mayor and originally published in 1924. It caught my attention for two reasons. The intellectual reason is that the title sounds like it could be a novel by Trollope, one of my many favorite authors. The other reason is the secretly-I-am-12 reason. Rector? Damn near killed her. Okay. I have gotten that out of the way and can now move on to a book I adore. Mary Jocelyn is in her mid-thirties and already fading, her life has been one of quiet, respectful duty. Living in the home of her father Canon Jocelyn, Dedmayne Rectory a house as faded as its occupants, Mary is pitied by her neighbours for the reduced life she is living. Having devoted herself to her father, her recently deceased, disabled sister, and the few wants of the villagers Mary has little to look forward to. An occasional visit from her childhood friend Dora, a short holiday to Broadstairs with her Aunt, is what her life has become. Her father is an octogenarian of Victorian values, a man of cold reserve, he has no idea of Mary’s inner life, and he takes her and her continual presence for granted. Her best-known novel is The Rector's Daughter (1924). (In October 2009 this was described in the BBC's 'Open Book' programme as one of the best 'neglected classics'.) In October 2009 ‘The Rector’s Daughter’ was described in the BBC's 'Open Book' program as one of the best 'neglected classics'.

A masterpiece of style, insight and tact. Mary Jocelyn is the daughter of a Canon who stands head and shoulders intellectually above the village, not two miles from London, where he has his church. A man of great acuity and probity, he chills her early literary efforts. After her mother's early death, she spends an outwardly loveless existence tending to a remaining invalid sister. She has the love of her life when the son of a Cambridge classmate of her father's--at university handsome and supercilious, now neither--comes as parson to a neighbouring parish. Mr Herbert comes first to see her father, to consult him on Tertullian and discuss Vergil, but increasingly opens his heart to Mary. He confides his religious doubts, his fear of wanting human and holy warmth. It seems inevitable he will propose, but she reads in a letter over breakfast that--in an outflow of spirits prompted by Mary's friendship, no more--he has offered himself to a much younger woman, a hard and slangy orphan, beautiful, and brought up more by groundspeople than governesses. This is again one of those novels where not a great deal actually happens, but it is a sharp and perceptive analysis of the human heart, human relationships; loss, love, friendship and loneliness. The story is a simple one. Mary Jocelyn lives with her father a clergyman in a small isolated village in East Anglia in the early twentieth century. It is a quiet life; she nurses her sister Ruth until her death, visits locals and manages the household. Mary is in her 30s and there is no thought of marriage. Mary reads, writes occasional poetry and is thoughtful and Mayor portrays her as quiet, introverted with strong passions beneath the surface, but most of all as the intellectual equal of any man. Into her life comes another clergyman, just moved into the area, Robert Herbert. Herbert’s father was a close friend of Mary’s father and he begins to visit regularly. They begin to spend time together and a friendship based on mutual intellectual interests, a love of nature and general steadiness develops. They fall in love in a slow steady sort of way and become to all intents and purposes engaged. It is a sensitive exploration of human relationships, set against a very quiet, dull rural setting in East Anglia, U.K. in clerical households. Mary is a complex and sympathetic character, and eventually Kathy, the beautiful daughter of an old county family, is also revealed as having more depth of feeling than one might originally credit her with.Take care, Mary dear, you stepped right into that puddle. Wait a minute. Let me wipe your coat. I am not quite sure that I understand what you were saying.” This a story about a woman, Mary, who never thought she had a chance at love. She is thirty five when she meets the new minister in the village. Mary is a plain woman, but sensitive and intellectual. She lives her life for her family, Canon Jocelyn, her father, is extremely erudite and known as a scholar in his group. Mary, also takes care of an ill and dying sister. Mary is content in her role as devoted daughter and sister, but yearns for more. Her father loves Mary, but never shows his feelings. The time is the 1920s and men of his generation are not warm and confiding. Juliet Stevenson reads F M Mayor's unfairly Neglected Classic, the story of a plain, reliable parson's daughter whose life of duty and service is thrown into confusion by an unexpected and unsought love affair. Today Mary's quiet life in the rectory is disturbed by a new visitor, Mr Herbert. Flora Macdonald Mayor was an English novelist and short story writer who published under the name F. M. Mayor.