Working
with used books in a physical store, I finally read a novel of Oliver
Wendell Holmes Sr. - Elsie
Venner. I
savored its depiction of New England life so when I came across
another book with Holmes on its spine, and one in bad condition, I
started reading it. That book was titled Cousin
Maude.
The
title page was missing and after the first chapter, I said to myself,
“This is like an American Jane Austen. How could the author of
Elsie
Venner and
several more philosophical works write like this?” With internet
help, I found that I was reading Mary J. Holmes, an author I had seen
upstairs in our store, on shelves that were lower priced vintage. I
didn’t know anything about Mary J. Holmes and had confused her with
a religious author, Marjorie Holmes.
Mary
J. Holmes was born Mary J. Hawes in 1825. From Massachusetts, she
married Daniel Holmes who became a lawyer. They lived for a few years
in Kentucky, which inspired some of her 39 novels, and then moved to
New York State. She traveled extensively. Her novels were
best-selling, I was surprised and ignorant to learn.
Cousin
Maude was
both delightful and funny. Another reason I was so puzzled at
thinking Dr. Holmes had written the book was its doctor character,
step-father to Maude. He was plumbed after he insisted on walking to
the house of his second wife-to-be, for health but suspiciously
because he refused to pay a carriage driver. The second wife died too
and Maude's future was designated as domestic support to the doctor
and his two children, which began the Austen-like social imbroglio
concerning Maude and the doctor's daughter. I laughed many times
while realizing that Mary J. Holmes had a keen sense of the barriers
women experienced. And she also made the doctor's servants into vivid
characters, including a black couple who were hoping someday to have
a place of their own. But that wasn't the end of the doctor whose
next venture topped the romance of the younger set.
The
book was a treat, but what I also liked about it was the detailed New
England setting and the skill of the novelist in bringing these
nineteenth century scenes to life.
I
had to try another of her novels, available as e-books. Gretchen
was a
later work and it began with a sense of mystery. The
rich traveler Arthur comes back to his mansion mentally tormented,
though he immediately makes plans to renovate rooms for the
mysterious Gretchen, a lovely person who Arthur protests is “still
a child.”
Again,
a male character is probed and with the same acerbity that points out
the pathos of neglected women when American men could rise.
Gretchen became a ridiculous suspense that made me turn the pages.
Even though a baby appeared instead of her and mystified the entire
community with scant evidence of a German nurse, the author's
handling of Arthur still kept the mystery of Gretchen going. Arthur's
escape into building and planning his grounds was fascinating.
America was built quickly and this character with his vast railroad
fortune shows the mania for replicating European buildings and
terraces. The book has its romantic twists with the grown girl,
raised by a modest family after she was rescued without any
acknowledgement.
I
really couldn't understand how Mary J. Holmes was forgotten as a
novelist. I felt that Austen fans would enjoy her American parallels.
But she isn't so finely crafted as Austen and, because she was
prolific and so successful in her time, she was probably allowed to
draw out scenes and digress with minor characters.
Now
I'm reading Bessie's
Fortune.
This book has a more serious vein running through it, having to do
with a terrible guilt and secret event that affects a family. The
plot is different from the others in that there are connections to
England and Wales. Mary J. Holmes spikes her humor here with polite
barbs about lifestyle differences between her British and American
relatives. Bessie's family is gentry and related to a Lady Jane but
they are down on their money. Her parents are desperate enough to go
to Monte Carlo, splendidly described. While they cling to
respectability, they gamble with a young peer who has dressed as a
woman so he won’t be recognized. It looks like Bessie will be sent
to America to stay with her miserly aunt.
I
noticed at Amazon that reviewers were liking Gretchen
as much as I had. There are others who are reading this author
because of her portrayal of women, class struggles, black characters,
and slavery. Though she has been called sentimental, and outcomes can
be heartwarming like Frances Hodgson Burnett, her American characters
might be called Dickensian in their eccentric personalities. Her
books are a trip to the America of the mid-1800's.
