Essential Novelists Mary Cholmondeley

Welcome to the Essential Novelists book series, were we present to you the best works of remarkable authors. For this book, the literary critic August Nemo has chosen the two most important and meaningful novels of Mary Cholmondeley which are Red Pottage and Moth and Rust. The author was widely read and commented on in her time, often compared to Jane Austen. Those who like novel of manners must know her work. Novels selected for this book: - Red Pottage. - Moth and Rust.This is one of many books in the series Essential Novelists. If you liked this book, look for the other titles in the series, we are sure you will like some of the authors.

Mary Cholmondeley (8 June 1859 - 15 July 1925) was an English novelist.Mary Cholmondeley (usually pronounced ) was born at Hodnet near Market Drayton in Shropshire, the third of eight children of Rev Richard Hugh Cholmondeley (1827-1910) and his wife Emily Beaumont (1831-1893). Her great-uncle was the hymn-writing bishop Reginald Heber and her niece the writer Stella Benson. An uncle, Reginald Cholmondeley of Condover Hall was host to the American novelist Mark Twain on his visits to England.Her sister Hester, who died in 1892, wrote poetry and kept a journal, selections of both appearing in Mary's family memoir, Under One Roof (1918). After brief periods in Farnborough, Warwickshire and Leaton, Shropshire, the family returned to Hodnet when her father was appointed rector in 1874 in succession to his father. Much of the first 30 years of her life was taken up with helping her sickly mother run the household and her father with parish work, although she was debilitated with asthma. She entertained her brothers and sisters with stories from an early age.After her father retired in 1896, she moved with him and her sister Diana to Condover Hall, which they had inherited from Reginald. They sold it and moved to Albert Gate Mansions in Knightsbridge, London. After her father died, she lived with her sister Victoria, moving between Ufford, Suffolk, and 2 Leonard Place, Kensington. During the war she did clerical work in the Carlton House Terrace Hospital. The sisters moved in 1919 to 4 Argyll Road, Kensington, where Mary died on 15 July 1925. She never married.Mary Cholmondeley began writing with serious intent in her teens. She wrote in her journal in 1877, "What a pleasure and interest it would be to me in life to write books. I must strike out a line of some kind, and if I do not marry (for at best that is hardly likely, as I possess neither beauty nor charms) I should want some definite occupation, besides the home duties."[5] She succeeded in publishing some stories in The Graphic and elsewhere. Her first novel was The Danvers Jewels (1887), a detective story that won her a small following. It appeared in the Temple Bar magazine published by Richard Bentley, after fellow novelist Rhoda Broughton had introduced to George Bentley. It was followed by Sir Charles Danvers (1889), Diana Tempest (1893) and A Devotee (1897).The satirical Red Pottage (1899) was a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic and is reprinted occasionally.It satirises religious hypocrisy and the narrowness of country life, and was denounced from a London pulpit as immoral. It was equally sensational because it "explored the issues of female sexuality and vocation, recurring topics in late-Victorian debates about the New Women."Despite the book's great success, however, the author received little money for it because she had sold the copyright.A silent film, Red Pottage was made in 1918. Diana Tempest was reissued in 2009 for the first time in a century.Later works such as Moth and Rust (1902) and Notwithstanding (1913) were less successful. The Lowest Rung (1908) and The Romance of his Life (1921) were collections of stories, the latter, her final book, dedicated to the essayist and critic Percy Lubbock.Lubbock later commemorated her in Mary Cholmondeley: A Sketch from Memory (1928)

Mary Cholmondeley (8 June 1859 - 15 July 1925) was an English novelist.Mary Cholmondeley (usually pronounced ) was born at Hodnet near Market Drayton in Shropshire, the third of eight children of Rev Richard Hugh Cholmondeley (1827-1910) and his wife Emily Beaumont (1831-1893). Her great-uncle was the hymn-writing bishop Reginald Heber and her niece the writer Stella Benson. An uncle, Reginald Cholmondeley of Condover Hall was host to the American novelist Mark Twain on his visits to England.Her sister Hester, who died in 1892, wrote poetry and kept a journal, selections of both appearing in Mary's family memoir, Under One Roof (1918). After brief periods in Farnborough, Warwickshire and Leaton, Shropshire, the family returned to Hodnet when her father was appointed rector in 1874 in succession to his father. Much of the first 30 years of her life was taken up with helping her sickly mother run the household and her father with parish work, although she was debilitated with asthma. She entertained her brothers and sisters with stories from an early age.After her father retired in 1896, she moved with him and her sister Diana to Condover Hall, which they had inherited from Reginald. They sold it and moved to Albert Gate Mansions in Knightsbridge, London. After her father died, she lived with her sister Victoria, moving between Ufford, Suffolk, and 2 Leonard Place, Kensington. During the war she did clerical work in the Carlton House Terrace Hospital. The sisters moved in 1919 to 4 Argyll Road, Kensington, where Mary died on 15 July 1925. She never married.Mary Cholmondeley began writing with serious intent in her teens. She wrote in her journal in 1877, "What a pleasure and interest it would be to me in life to write books. I must strike out a line of some kind, and if I do not marry (for at best that is hardly likely, as I possess neither beauty nor charms) I should want some definite occupation, besides the home duties."[5] She succeeded in publishing some stories in The Graphic and elsewhere. Her first novel was The Danvers Jewels (1887), a detective story that won her a small following. It appeared in the Temple Bar magazine published by Richard Bentley, after fellow novelist Rhoda Broughton had introduced to George Bentley. It was followed by Sir Charles Danvers (1889), Diana Tempest (1893) and A Devotee (1897).The satirical Red Pottage (1899) was a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic and is reprinted occasionally.It satirises religious hypocrisy and the narrowness of country life, and was denounced from a London pulpit as immoral. It was equally sensational because it "explored the issues of female sexuality and vocation, recurring topics in late-Victorian debates about the New Women."Despite the book's great success, however, the author received little money for it because she had sold the copyright.A silent film, Red Pottage was made in 1918. Diana Tempest was reissued in 2009 for the first time in a century.Later works such as Moth and Rust (1902) and Notwithstanding (1913) were less successful. The Lowest Rung (1908) and The Romance of his Life (1921) were collections of stories, the latter, her final book, dedicated to the essayist and critic Percy Lubbock.Lubbock later commemorated her in Mary Cholmondeley: A Sketch from Memory (1928).....

"Notwithstanding" from Mary Cholmondeley. English novelist (1859-1925).

This book provides a necessary critical reappraisal of one of the most challenging and subversive of nineteenth-century women writers.

Mary Cholmondeley (1859-1925) was an English writer. Members of her family were involved in the literary world, notably her uncle Reginald Cholmondeley who was a friend of the American novelist, Mark Twain. Growing up, Mary Cholmondeley liked to tell stories to her siblings and turned to writing fiction as an escape from the monotony of her daily routine. Her diary showed that by the age of 18 she was already convinced she would never marry, lacking, she believed, the looks and the charms necessary to attract a suitable mate. Her first book was published under the title "Her Evil Genius," and shortly thereafter, in 1886, her second work, "The Danvers Jewels," earned her a small but respectable following. In 1896 her family moved to the village of Condover temporarily before settling permanently in London, where she wrote the 1899 satirical novel, "Red Pottage," for which she is best remembered.

Diana Tempest (1893) is novel by Mary Cholmondeley. Partly based on her experience as an artist from a wealthy landowning family, Diana Tempest is a story of greed, romance, and betrayal that faced backlash from critics for its controversial portrayal of female sexuality. Satirical and deeply observant of the hypocrisies of Victorian society, Diana Tempest is an essential work by one of Victorian England’s bestselling novelists. “Colonel Tempest, as a rule, took life very easily. If he had fits of uncontrolled passion now and then, they were quickly over. If his feelings were touched, that was quickly over too. But to-day his face was clouded. He had tried the usual antidotes for an impending attack of what he would have called ‘the blues,’ by which he meant any species of reflection calculated to give him that passing annoyance which was the deepest form of emotion of which he was capable.” Unused to being denied, Colonel Tempest is unable to control himself following the death of his brother. Rather than mourn his loss, he laments the passing of the Tempest family fortune to his nephew John, a secretly illegitimate child whose claim as heir is fabricated at best. A notorious gambler, he makes a drunken bet that he will one day control the estate, unwittingly placing a bounty on John’s head. At the same time, the Colonel’s daughter Diana has begun to fall in love with the young heir, complicating her father’s plans and welcoming disaster into her life. Diane Tempest is a tale of family, faith, and betrayal that explores the Victorian concept of the New Woman without sacrificing its entertaining narrative. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Mary Cholmondeley’s Diane Tempest is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

"Born in 1859 of an aristocratic background, Mary Cholmondeley was a gifted writer. Producing a number of well-received novels, her main success came with the controversial satire Red Pottage (1899), a favourite amongst British troops in the Boer War and even enjoyed by Queen Victoria. Something of an enigma, she was often portrayed as an unambitious spinster to whom celebrity had come as a surprise. On the contrary, however, by the time of her sudden fame, she was already an established writer, having published a number of titles since 1887." "Giving a comprehensive critique of Cholmondeley's writings, Oulton analyzes the inspiration and influences behind some of her greatest work and provides an appealing biography of a writer whose work is of increasing interest to modern scholars." --Book Jacket.