Louisa M Alcott
Hannibal Rising
Pbk published May 2004 by Hesperus Press at £6.99
ISBN: 1843910861
When demure Scottish governess Jean Muir arrives at a wealthy household, the family couldn’t be more thrilled with their new young resident, and find themselves quite beguiled by her grace and beauty. But this surrender to her ‘innocent’ charms soon sets the men quarrelling for her attention, with the women beside themselves with jealousy. Delighted with her success, Miss Muir sets her sights on the highest prize – but she has only three days to claim victory before the truth, behind her mask, will be exposed.
Only single-volume edition of a largely unknown novella by the author of Little Women
The lives of women have changed so much that nothing like this could be written now, but apart from the historical interest, once you know the author wrote Little Women and Good Wives – some may think improbably – then this tale becomes irresistible. The heroine is the figure that plays such a part in nineteenth-century fiction, and well into the twentieth century, the woman with no assets but her talents and, if she is lucky, good looks. She has enough of an education to be a lady. She shades off into the adventuresses of Henry James, Trollope and Oscar Wilde, and at the other end of the spectrum of respectability she is the governess, with Lucy Snow and Jane Eyre. Not one of the family, but not a servant either, she is poor and honest, knowing her place but self-respecting, her virtues surely conspiring against her to make her lot as bad as it can be. To be a governess or a companion – the dread of it darkens pages in books as diverse as Vanity Fair and Daniel Deronda. This governess Miss Muir is not good, she is as amoral as she needs to be: she schemes, she plots, she plans, aided by a battery of accomplishments you are tempted to think must be impossible in one person. But then, if you have nothing but your charms and your talents they must be made the most of.