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5.4"x7.6"x1.3"; 0.9 lb; 320 pages
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By Charliecat
Format:Paperback
The Penge Murder Mystery was a notorious crime which came to light in 1877. Harriet Staunton - a woman with learning difficulties who was then deemed `simple-minded' or `a natural' -died of starvation and neglect along with her baby. Her husband Louis Staunton (Lewis Oman in the novel), his brother Patrick, his wife Elizabeth and her sister Alice (who was also Louis' mistress) were tried and convicted of her murder.
It was and still is a horrifying case which later merited a volume in the Notable British Trials Series which is where the author Elizabeth Jenkins came across the case and became `obsessed' with the Stauntons and the death of poor Harriet.
Harriet, written in 1934, is one of the very first novels to take a real life incident and fictionalise it in a way which is now very much in vogue. Elizabeth Jenkins had such a deft hand with characterisation that no-one in the novel comes across as overtly villainous as they might do in the hands of a lesser author. The reader is shown how greed, vanity and possessive love can lead these four people to commit such unimaginable crimes.
I felt a terrible sense of pity for Mrs Olgilvy (Harriet's mother Mrs Butterfield) and the despair which overtakes her when she realises she cannot prevent her daughter from marrying the fortune hunting Lewis Oman (Louis Staunton) and from then on there is an impending sense of tragedy because the reader knows how it will end.
Harriet is sensitively drawn and I felt her confusion when all the things she has known - care, comfort and love- from her mother are taken away from her and she is pushed more and more callously out of the picture so that the four can live the blissfully happy life they have always wanted if only they had had the money before. The coldness and disgust which Lewis, Alice, Elizabeth and Patrick begin to treat Harriet is terrifying and filled me with mounting shock and pity.
Harriet is a brilliantly accomplished and chilling read and I was gripped from start to finish and I read it in one sitting.
It was and still is a horrifying case which later merited a volume in the Notable British Trials Series which is where the author Elizabeth Jenkins came across the case and became `obsessed' with the Stauntons and the death of poor Harriet.
Harriet, written in 1934, is one of the very first novels to take a real life incident and fictionalise it in a way which is now very much in vogue. Elizabeth Jenkins had such a deft hand with characterisation that no-one in the novel comes across as overtly villainous as they might do in the hands of a lesser author. The reader is shown how greed, vanity and possessive love can lead these four people to commit such unimaginable crimes.
I felt a terrible sense of pity for Mrs Olgilvy (Harriet's mother Mrs Butterfield) and the despair which overtakes her when she realises she cannot prevent her daughter from marrying the fortune hunting Lewis Oman (Louis Staunton) and from then on there is an impending sense of tragedy because the reader knows how it will end.
Harriet is sensitively drawn and I felt her confusion when all the things she has known - care, comfort and love- from her mother are taken away from her and she is pushed more and more callously out of the picture so that the four can live the blissfully happy life they have always wanted if only they had had the money before. The coldness and disgust which Lewis, Alice, Elizabeth and Patrick begin to treat Harriet is terrifying and filled me with mounting shock and pity.
Harriet is a brilliantly accomplished and chilling read and I was gripped from start to finish and I read it in one sitting.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By A Ryder
Format:Paperback
It doesn't seem right to call a book 'wonderful' when the subject matter is as grim as this. It's a novelised version of a true crime which happened in Penge, now a suburb of London, in the 1870s, and Jenkins wrote it in the early 1930s (it beat 'Frost in May' and 'A Handful of Dust' to a prestigious literary award). The eponymous Harriet is a rich young lady who had what we would now call learning difficulties, and she was married for her money and then shut away and neglected until she and her baby died of starvation. The stuff of Victorian melodrama is here rendered in a chillingly matter-of-fact, unflinching way which only heightens the tragedy of a vulnerable, trusting young woman in the hands of predators. Jenkins was apparently upset herself, by what she'd written, wondering how such a terrible thing could happen. All credit to her that she doesn't portray the Omans as soulless monsters, but corruptible, selfish and weak-willed human beings. What shocked Victorian and inter-war society should perhaps be less horrifying in an age of genocide and terrorism, but the tragedy here is undiminished.
I have also read two other Persephone titles, 'The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes' and 'The Victorian Chaise-Longue' by Marghanita Laski and both were great, well-written reads. If you like the sinister, the tragic and the Victorians in a quality package, this is definitely worth a read.
I have also read two other Persephone titles, 'The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes' and 'The Victorian Chaise-Longue' by Marghanita Laski and both were great, well-written reads. If you like the sinister, the tragic and the Victorians in a quality package, this is definitely worth a read.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This novel by Elizabeth Jenkins is beautifully written as you would expect from such a distinguished author. Her work has largely been forgotten but recently her Tortoise and the Hare was re-issued which lead me to want to read more. Harriet is now out of print but I obtained my copy from a seller in USA. It is a dark tale of selfishness and the helplessness of such women as Harriet and her Mother around the turn of the last century.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
'It is not as if anyone else had done it - with us it was different'
Harriet Woodhouse is, in the language of the 1870s, a 'natural' - today we would say she had learning difficulties. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Eleanor
5.0 out of 5 stars
' "After all", thought Elizabeth, "it isn't as if she felt anything- "...
'At half-past five on a January evening of the year 1875, Mrs Ogilvy's drawing room was a pleasant place. Read more
Published 2 months ago by sally tarbox
5.0 out of 5 stars
CAUTION
A superb book,with pace and action aplenty. Unmissable. However, I advise anyone who buys this book NOT to read the back cover-it will spoil your enjoyment, as a crucial part of... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Mr. Michael Richard Harris
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