- Paperback: 254 pages
- Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; New edition edition (1 Jun 1978)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140302018
- ISBN-13: 978-0140302011
- ASIN: 0192812432
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 979,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Synopsis
The severities and pleasures of a girl's schooling in Victorian London are described.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Much of all that we have lost as caring humans easily occupied by our own imaginations and fascinated by and interested in others is beautifully captured in this elegant trilogy of books by M V Hughes. Life was no easier back then, but it was a whole to richer for having less in it. People actually mattered and the experience of life and living was everything. She suffered awful hardship and privation in her life and always saw the sunny side. She came up with a smile, all the time and the book(s) leave you so much richer for having read them and shared her experiences. Feel good books that will leave you smiling with delight.
Format:Paperback
I didn't enjoy this as much as the first book of Molly Hughes's autobiographical trilogy. It doesn't have that lovely fresh feel of her 1870s childhood memoir and to a modern reader she comes across as a bit too priggish to be wholly likeable (and there's a bit too much about her love of Latin and Greek).
But what is fascinating is her description of girls' education (she was a pupil of the famous and rather terrifying Miss Buss in North London), and also her description of teacher training. I was fascinated by the strict school rules laid down by even such an enlightened educationist as Miss Buss, and that teenage girls would obey them so wholeheartedly. There's also some wonderful passages about the trials of railway travel (26 hours and seven trains from Cornwall to Wales), and about the difficulties of rural housekeeping at a time when the butcher opened once a week and no such thing as fridges/freezers.
Underpinning all this is the financial precariousness of Molly and her mother ... though they rise to it with good humour, it must have been terrifying for women after the death of husbands/fathers when it was almost impossible for them to earn their own livings. (Even pioneering Miss Buss was rattled when one of her pupils decided that she wanted to train as a dentist.) When 20-year-old Molly meets the serious young man who falls in love with her, even though he is 30 they have to accept that it will be years before they can marry.
Well worth reading for a glimpse into the real life of a lively, middle-class Victorian family.
But what is fascinating is her description of girls' education (she was a pupil of the famous and rather terrifying Miss Buss in North London), and also her description of teacher training. I was fascinated by the strict school rules laid down by even such an enlightened educationist as Miss Buss, and that teenage girls would obey them so wholeheartedly. There's also some wonderful passages about the trials of railway travel (26 hours and seven trains from Cornwall to Wales), and about the difficulties of rural housekeeping at a time when the butcher opened once a week and no such thing as fridges/freezers.
Underpinning all this is the financial precariousness of Molly and her mother ... though they rise to it with good humour, it must have been terrifying for women after the death of husbands/fathers when it was almost impossible for them to earn their own livings. (Even pioneering Miss Buss was rattled when one of her pupils decided that she wanted to train as a dentist.) When 20-year-old Molly meets the serious young man who falls in love with her, even though he is 30 they have to accept that it will be years before they can marry.
Well worth reading for a glimpse into the real life of a lively, middle-class Victorian family.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Remarkable, fascinating and moving
4 Sep 2005
Format:Paperback
This is the second volume in Mary Hughes's autobiographical trilogy, which starts with "A London Child of the 1870's". All three are recommended. This volume may be the best of the three, because in the first one Mary Hughes is just a child, but in this book she more clearly shows what a remarkable person she was.
She was raised in a family that valued education and literature, and although she attended no school until she was eleven, she was an outstanding pupil and was one of the first women in a new teacher's training college in Cambridge. She later, in her early twenties, ran a teacher's training institution herself; and her commonsense account of her principles and what she tried to impart to her students--who were often older and more experienced than she was--is fascinating reading.
The real attraction of the book, however, is her personality: Mary Hughes (or rather Mary Thomas, as she was then) was clearly one of those people for whom nothing but real tragedy can overcome a basically cheerful and good-humoured outlook. Her stories of school, family and college life are detailed enough to feel intimate and closely-observed enough to be truly informative about what life was like in the 1880's. Textbooks can give you data, but can't make you feel as though you knew what it was to be a Londoner in Victorian times. This book helps fill the gap so thoroughly you will feel like a friend of the family at the end of it.
The books are moving, too: her large family was not immune to tragedy, and it is an emotional shock when a death occurs.
Strongly recommended; but I would suggest you read the first volume before this -- it is just as good, and if you read it you will enjoy this one even more.
She was raised in a family that valued education and literature, and although she attended no school until she was eleven, she was an outstanding pupil and was one of the first women in a new teacher's training college in Cambridge. She later, in her early twenties, ran a teacher's training institution herself; and her commonsense account of her principles and what she tried to impart to her students--who were often older and more experienced than she was--is fascinating reading.
The real attraction of the book, however, is her personality: Mary Hughes (or rather Mary Thomas, as she was then) was clearly one of those people for whom nothing but real tragedy can overcome a basically cheerful and good-humoured outlook. Her stories of school, family and college life are detailed enough to feel intimate and closely-observed enough to be truly informative about what life was like in the 1880's. Textbooks can give you data, but can't make you feel as though you knew what it was to be a Londoner in Victorian times. This book helps fill the gap so thoroughly you will feel like a friend of the family at the end of it.
The books are moving, too: her large family was not immune to tragedy, and it is an emotional shock when a death occurs.
Strongly recommended; but I would suggest you read the first volume before this -- it is just as good, and if you read it you will enjoy this one even more.
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