“We have no hesitation in declaring that ‘The Awakening of Mary Fenwick’ is the best novel of its kind that we have seen for some years. It is apparently a first effort, and, as such, is really remarkable. The story is extremely simple. Mary Mauser marries her husband for external, and perhaps rather inadequate, reasons, and then discovers that he married her because she was an heiress. She feels the indignity acutely, and does not scruple to tell him her opinion—her very candid opinion—of his behaviour. That is the effect of the first few chapters, and the rest of Miss Whitby’s book is devoted to relating how this divided couple hated, quarrelled, and finally fell in love with one another. Mary Fenwick and her husband live and move and make us believe in them in a way which few but the great masters of fiction have been able to compass.”—Athenæum.
ONE REASON WHY.
“Our old friend the governess makes a re-entry into fiction under the auspices of Beatrice Whitby in ‘One Reason Why.’ Readers generally, however, will take a great deal more interest, for once, in the children than in their instructress. ‘Bay’ and ‘Ellie’ are charmingly natural additions to the children of novel-land; so much so, that there is a period when one dreads a death-bed scene for one of them—a fear which is happily unfulfilled. The name of the authoress will be remembered by many in conjunction with ‘The Awakening of Mary Fenwick.’”—Graphic.
PART OF THE PROPERTY.
“The book is a thoroughly good one. The theme is fairly familiar—the rebellion of a spirited girl against a match which has been arranged for her without her knowledge or consent; her resentment at being treated, not as a woman with a heart and will, but as ‘part of the property’; and her final discovery, which is led up to with real dramatic skill, that the thing against which her whole nature had risen in revolt has become the one desire of her heart. The mutual relations each to each of the impetuous Madge, her self-willed, stubborn grandfather, who has arranged the match, and her lover Jocelyn, with his loyal, devoted sweetly-balanced nature, are portrayed with fine truth of insight; but perhaps the author’s greatest triumph is the portrait of Mrs. Lindsay, who, with the knowledge of the terrible skeleton in the cupboard of her apparently happy home, wears so bravely the mask of light gaiety as to deceive everybody but the one man who knows her secret.”—Spectator.
IN THE SUNTIME OF HER YOUTH.
“A description of a home stripped by the cold wind of poverty of all its comforts, but which remains home still. The careless optimism of the head of the family would be incredible, if we did not know how men exist full of responsibilities yet free from solicitudes, and who tread with a jaunty step the very verge of ruin; his inconsolable widow would be equally improbable, if we did not meet every day with women who devote themselves to such idols of clay. The characters of their charming children, whose penury we deplore, do not deteriorate, as often happens in that cruel ordeal. A sense of fairness pervades the book which is rarely found in the work of a lady. There is interest in it from first to last, and its pathos is relieved by touches of true humour.”—Illustrated London News.