Tag: classics

Review: The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date August 9, 2025

I didn’t expect to enjoy The New Magdalen so much! Some minimal research pointed out that “Magdalenes” were rescue shelters for fallen women (~prostitutes/ unmarried pregnant women) back in 1800s.

The book is set in the background of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). A lady named Grace has sent out from Canada to England, to seek a home with one of her wealthier distant relatives as a paid lady’s companion after her father dies. She is also now engaged to be married to a family friend in England.

And yet within a few months of her arrival in England, another woman shows up (whom people have been mistaking as a fallen woman “Mercy” from one of the said Magdalenes) — and now she claims to be the real Grace!

So, who is the real impostor? How do we figure this out in the 1870s, with no DNA testing, photographs, photocopies, or international or electronic databases? Original handwritten letters from relatives and friends are really all you have, and if lost, you are done for.

Tags #ccspin, #ccwhatimreading, #Classics Club, classics, historical, mysteries, reading-challenges

Miscellany

The New Magdalen for Classics Club Challenge

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date July 18, 2025
2 Comments on The New Magdalen for Classics Club Challenge

I signed up for the Classics Club challenge last year, and I am slowly — very, very slowly — trying to finish off the items on my list. Thanks to CC Spin #41, the new “lucky” number is 11, and so I am off to read:

The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins (1873)

After much hunting around, here’s a blurb at Storytel that actually seemed interesting:

“You don’t have to put on the red light“, as Sting sings – except this female main character, Mercy Merrick, comes to that conclusion herself. Originally written as a play, “The New Magdalen” is a classic Victorian sensation novel, highlighting the prejudices against a woman of the streets in English society.
Mercy is at the frontline of the war in France when she meets Grace Roseberry, a traveller who is returning to England to connect with her wealthy English relative, Lady Roy, after being left penniless in Italy. Spotting an opportunity to change her life, Mercy cunningly takes Grace’s name. It’s a dramatic tale of a stolen identity amongst the upper classes, which would be right at home in the pages of “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.

Stolen identity, well! This one actually reminds me of Lady Audley’s Secret by M.E. Braddon. I do like them, those plot-twisty mysteries by Wilkie Collins!

Tags #ccspin, #Classics Club, classics, mysteries, reading-challenges

Best of List Books Index Memes Starred Recommendations

Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date October 8, 2024
4 Comments on Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot

I count George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss as one of my all-time favorites, so I was eager to start Scenes of Clerical Life as my Spin #38 pick for Classics Club Challenge. I was also fortunate to find the Librivox Recording by Bruce Pirie (available in Podcast formats too) and it was so good — highly recommended!

Scenes of a Clerical Life by George Eliot

Scenes of Clerical Life has 3 stories, each one progressively longer and more impactful.

Tags #ccspin, #ccwhatimreading, #Classics Club, classics, historical, reading-challenges

Memes To Be Read Books

Classics Club Challenge: CC Spin #38

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date July 21, 2024
2 Comments on Classics Club Challenge: CC Spin #38

Several months ago, I had decided to participate in the Classics Club Challenge and signed up with a bucket list of 100 classic literature books that I wanted to read. Occasionally, a random number is also generated by by the hosts at The Classics Club, and you can play along by reading that entry number from your chosen list. Rules are here.

This is my first CC Spin, and the Lucky Spin Number this time around is …

…. Number 17

On my list, entry #17 is Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot (1857). If I remember correctly, I chose this book because Eliot seems to have had a difficult relationship with her father and she has reflected some of that tension in this book. Plus, Eliot is one of my favorite all-time authors.

Not a very promising book cover, that. But let’s see…

Are you participating in CC Spin #38, or generally in the Classics Club Challenge this year?

Tags #ccspin, #Classics Club, classics, historical, reading-challenges

Books Starred Recommendations

December Wrap-Up

Three great December reads — all mysteries, all within this month, and all pretty good! I am already adding some of them to my Best of 2023 list.

Night Will Find You by Julia Heaberlin

Phenomenally well-written, terse suspense. Astronomer Vivvy Bouchet also has unsettling psychic insight and gets pulled into looking for a missing girl by cops. Is she a quack or is it real – nobody can make up their mind about it. As a narrator, Vivvy is unusually talkative but also just a bit unreliable, and this makes her a supremely interesting character. Equally interesting is her public fight with a cult-ish conspiracy podcaster Bubba Guns.
The tense pacing of the first half dwindles later, but Heaberlin still manages a very decent wrap-up at the end. I hear the book’s already up for TV adaptation. And with a title like that, how can you possibly ignore this book? Highly recommended!

Wherever She Goes by Kelley Armstrong

Another solid thriller from Armstrong. Recently divorced single mother Aubrey Finch believes she has spotted a kidnapping, but nobody wants to believe her. But Finch has other ghosts from her past, which compel her to pursue the case and in the process, reveal her own ghosts to the public eye. The pacing is excellent. If you can ignore the fact that most of Armstrong’s heroines seem very alike, you will like this one — not as much as the Rockton series, but still quite engrossing.

Tags 10-rated, classics, detective-fiction, mysteries

Miscellany Recommendations Watchlist

First Quarter Wrap-Up +Movie Recs

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date May 8, 2023
5 Comments on First Quarter Wrap-Up +Movie Recs

Well, it’s been more than a quarter, but it’s just easier to sum up that way! I’m still not getting much reading done, but at least I managed to find some really good movies. Here’s a wrap-up for the first quarter.

Tags B&Wmovies, classics, fantasy-fiction, favorites, feelgood, Japanese Literature, middle-grade, monthly wrap-up, mysteries, period dramas, underrated

Books Memes Recommendations

Penny Plain by O. Douglas: Cozy Scottish Historical

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date February 13, 2021
16 Comments on Penny Plain by O. Douglas: Cozy Scottish Historical

“SHOPMAN: “You may have your choice — penny plain or twopence coloured.”
SOLEMN SMALL BOY: “Penny plain, please. It’s better value for the money.”

Penny Plain O. Douglas — Read for Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: Book 4

Penny Plain by O. Douglas was a cozy, charming find (thanks to Elisabeth’s recommendation from last year). It’s set in the small town of Priorsford in Scotland, in the 1920s just after WWI.

Young Jean Jardine, barely twenty four, has been taking care of her three younger brothers since a long time. The Jardines have lived on meager means since their parents passed away, but they are an optimistic, good-hearted lot. There’s young rascal Mhor and his dog Peter, Jock who detests sentimentality because he’s at that teenage of life, David who got a scholarship to Oxford and just wants to improve things for his sister. They make do with what they have, possessing a secret of happiness that certainly the rich don’t. Oh, and they read lot, and quote Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott and lots of wonderful poetry.

Tags #histficreadingchallenge, 1920s, 8-rated, classics, Highlands, historical, reading-challenges

Books Memes Recommendations

Six Degrees: Not your Usual Guest Experiences

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date February 6, 2021
22 Comments on Six Degrees: Not your Usual Guest Experiences

It’s time for #6degrees. Start with the monthly read, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the 6 Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.

February 2021’s book is Redhead By the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler. Redhead is about a “Tech Hermit”, Micah Mortimer, whose neat, routined life goes topsy-turvy when guests appear uninvited at his door. This made me think of various house guest experiences, especially for some of the more reclusive literary characters.

Tags #6Degrees, characterizations, classics, Funnies, introverts, SFFgenre

Books Memes

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny: #VintageSciFiMonth

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date January 5, 2021
10 Comments on Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny: #VintageSciFiMonth

What if the Gods were alien invaders on another planet? What if they jealously guarded treasures of the advanced technological variety from the non-Gods? And, what if one day, someone decided to open up those treasure vaults to the rest of the world? That’s the theme of Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.

Lord of Light is a 1967 science fiction book and is my first book for the Vintage Science Fiction Month (not a reading challenge) of January 2021.

Tags #VintageSciFiMonth, 7-rated, classics, mythology, science-fiction, SFFgenre

The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins (1873)

1 / The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

…. Number 17