Miss or Mrs? Scenes 7-12 (Christmas Number 1871, THE GRAPHIC )

Dear Serial Readers,

Did you find anything humorous at all, about this family Christmas tale? I think precisely its appearance in the Christmas issue seems delightfully ironic--especially with such scene settings as the final one on Xmas Eve in RT's Somerset house: "The scene in the drawing room represented the ideal of domestic comfort." Lovely "domestic comfort" indeed--with an underaged daughter secretly married to her sweetheart and planning to elope Xmas morning also her 16th birthday, with her officially betrothed plotting to murder her father in order to obtain necessary funds to rescue himself from financial fraud, just to name a few of the intrigues afoot! Would this be entertaining reading to offset any seasonal malaise at holiday time? Would it stir up any suspicions for parents or prompt some scheming by children? So different from Dickens's sentimental "Christmas Carol"!

And how would suspense work given that the entire story is contained in the one issue? Perhaps the scene divisions (and even the asterisks or other inscribed breaks) might offer pausing spots for a serially suspenseful reading experience. I did love the melodramatic flavor of the entire story--with the shifting scenes (s0 many! the sea, suburban Muswell Hill, West End London, the City, East End London, Somerset country estate--both exterior and interior sets) and the staging of exaggerated feelings. Just before the end of the ninth scene, after Turlington learns from Lady W's stepdaughter about Natalie's secret marriage, those rather "extra" stepdaughters have an outburst (via the narration) of anxiety: "The Graybrookes! Now he knew it, what would become of the Graybrookes? What would he do when he got back? ....What would happen? Oh, good God! what would happen...." These stepdaughters never appear on stage again, but I loved that melodramatic flair, in case readers need coaching about the suspense!

As for the the drunken East End accomplice, the eloping hero in disguise at the right time and place, and finally the jammed gun and the foolishness of fiddling with it as RT did, somehow all the machinations of the murder and elopement and whatnot plots reminded me of a Victorian version of "Law and Order" or "SVU" (what I prefer to call "SUV")--only a quick few minutes to wrap all this up, and the audience knows precisely what will or won't happen (the villain will be killed or apprehended, the damsel in distress and the hero saved)!

I'm very interested to read some of Gaskell's serialized short stories. I was hoping to find one that was only two installments due to my upcoming London trip two weeks from now. But Gaskell's are either one installment or three, or many more. For next week and the week after, let's read "The Grey Woman" which was serialized in three short installments in All the Year Round (Jan 5, 12, 19, 1861). We'll read the first installment ("portion 1") for next week, and then portions 2-3 for March 7th. Again, you can download Gaskell's stories from two different websites: Many Books or Project Gutenberg. See the links to these sites in the sidebar to the right.

After "The Grey Women" I'm not sure whether to continue with Gaskell's stories or to go to Eliot's three "Scenes of Clerical Life" or move on to a long serial novel--Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit interests me because of its transatlantic (American) sections. So--please vote early and often in the poll I've installed below! I'll announce just before my London flight where Serial Readers goes next!

Serially shorter,
Susan