The Rector's Daughter (Virago Modern Classics)

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The Rector’s Daughter by the cruelly underrated FM (Flora Macdonald) Mayor is a book worthy to rank with anything that George Eliot or Jane Austen set their hand to. I recently finished reading FM Mayor’s classic novel – ‘The Rector’s Daughter’, recently published by Persephone Books. It would have been all too easy for the author to treat her just as a coarse grained, upper crust horsey type, but F.

The Rector’s Daughter by F. M. Mayor book review | The TLS

The Rector’s Daughter has the rare distinction during the same period of being one the few novels that merited new editions as a Penguin Twentieth Century Classic (1992) and a Penguin Modern Classic (2001). By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. The Rector’s Daughter was a runner-up for the 1925 ‘Prix Femina-Vie Heureuse’, a literary prize for a work ‘calculated to reveal to French readers the true spirit and character of England’ (Forster’s A Passage to India won that year instead). She is motherless, and lives a life of obedient graciousness towards her father – who is deeply intellectual, but not able to show his love for his daughter. It is left to Mary to look after her feeble needy sister and her stern father – and she does these things with all her heart.Her first book was a collection of short stories, Mrs Hammond's Children, published in 1901 under the pseudonym Mary Strafford. Your review here says it all, I think — you like irony and wit, and you don't really like serious, often sad, explorations of people's inner feelings. There was one of the curates at Southsea – I never imagined he cared at all for me; I had hardly ever spoken to him. Here Mary has spent 35 years devoting herself to her sister, now dead, and to her father, Canon Jocelyn. In it reside the old Rector and his daughter Mary and an invalid sister – Ruth, whom Mary nurses with great devotion.

The Rector’s Daughter – F.M. Mayor – Stuck in a Book The Rector’s Daughter – F.M. Mayor – Stuck in a Book

Yet, for all this, The Rector’s Daughter is still a novel that seems to exist just below the literary radar, much loved by its readers, but also, somehow, not widely read. This has been on my Wish List for ages – it's another of the books which Staffordshire's library service does not seem to have, which is a shame, because I am intrigued by the very different responses. It was very well written, but I thought very sad, so I don’t think I will be re-reading it in the near future.

Who knows, perhaps a re-read of The Rector’s Daughter would give me an equally enthusiastic second impression? Interspersed throughout the novel are descriptions of the small pleasures in living in the countryside and the appreciation of nature and the turning of the seasons. The Rector, is a stern, scholarly, authoritative figure – often appearing to live for only himself, with little care to the emotional needs and wants of his middle aged daughter.