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147th out of 406 books
—
255 voters
Ramona
One of the greatest ethical novels of the nineteenth century, this is a tale of true love tested. Set in Old California, this powerful narrative richly depicts the life of the fading Spanish order, the oppression of tribal American communities and inevitably, the brutal intrusion of white settlers. Ramona, an illegitimate orphan, grows up as the ward of the overbearing Sen...more
Paperback, 432 pages
Published
July 1st 2002
by Signet Classics
(first published 1884)
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Helen Hunt Jackson wrote Ramona to draw people's attention to the injustice being done to the Indians living in California. She was friends with Harriet Beecher Stowe and hoped that her story would have the same impact on the nation that Uncle Tom's Cabin had in the 1850's.
Boy was she wrong. Dead wrong. Instead of awakening the rest of America to the plight of the Indians of Southern California people received it as a romance novel. The nation was gripped with Ramona fever and California took n...more
Boy was she wrong. Dead wrong. Instead of awakening the rest of America to the plight of the Indians of Southern California people received it as a romance novel. The nation was gripped with Ramona fever and California took n...more
Ramona
By: Helen Hunt Jackson
With a bit of tragedy, history and love, it tried to make this book interesting; but it was not . The story of Ramona is set in Spanish California and the beginning of American California. Ramona is caught up in the tangle of races found in Southern California - Mexican, Spanish, Indian and American, and for me, this book failed to draw me a picture.
It's an old fashioned love story, a bit slow in parts, but with a noble and pure hero and heroine. Indian Alessandro an...more
By: Helen Hunt Jackson
With a bit of tragedy, history and love, it tried to make this book interesting; but it was not . The story of Ramona is set in Spanish California and the beginning of American California. Ramona is caught up in the tangle of races found in Southern California - Mexican, Spanish, Indian and American, and for me, this book failed to draw me a picture.
It's an old fashioned love story, a bit slow in parts, but with a noble and pure hero and heroine. Indian Alessandro an...more
As three stars indicates, I liked this book. Actually, I wish I could give it 3.5. I'm glad I read it, but I don't think I could do it again as it was so sad. I can't believe I'd never heard of it before, especially since I was a born and raised until I was 12 in San Diego. I guess in grade school, they don't begin yet to touch on the injustices done to the Native Americans and even to the Mexicans. We were still just learning what a mission was and some Spanish words. But I was in SD this sprin...more
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As many of you know, one of my hobbies is to read books that were once popular but have now fallen into obscurity, trying to understand the past through what excited people at the time.
Ramona, a book that has appeared in more than 300 editions since it was first published, was made into a movie four times, and inspired an entire tourist industry in the late 19th and early 20th century, is surely such a book. I've had a copy for years, one belonging to my father-in-law, and it's long been on my t...more
Ramona, a book that has appeared in more than 300 editions since it was first published, was made into a movie four times, and inspired an entire tourist industry in the late 19th and early 20th century, is surely such a book. I've had a copy for years, one belonging to my father-in-law, and it's long been on my t...more
It is definitely "a great American love story;" however, I have my doubts about it being the great activist novel Helen Hunt Jackson intended it to be. Read as a love story, it is as dramatic and tragic as the story of Romeo and Juliet. The fantastical beginnings of the novel, which read like the fairy tale Cinderella, should be taken with a grain of salt. It may be that the realism of our age kept me from enjoying it's unbelievable fairy tale beginnings. However, I did come to enjoy the novel a...more
I was assigned to read this for my American Lit class. The class is structured around the topic of the Wild West, and Westerns apparently developed as a response to something called domestic fiction. What is domestic fiction, you might ask. Well, imagine a bunch of self-righteous middle class women seeking to reform society through tales of disadvantaged young heroines who triumph over adversity through virtue, piety, and kindness. Are you nauseous yet? Now add some saccharine-sweet sentimentali...more
This wasn't at all what I expected! I'd always had a vague sense that Ramona was ridiculously rosy picture of "romantic Olde California" full of caballeros and things, but as it turns out it was intended as a propaganda novel about the rotten treatment of Californian Indians and Mexican landholders after the U.S. acquired California. Of course, everyone back East read it as the former, hence the Ramona pageant and an influx of Ramona tourism that accomplished the opposite of what Jackson hoped f...more
I think I can safely say that this is my mother's favorite novel. She made me read it when I was 14 or 15, so I thought I didn't really need to read it again. However, after re-reading it, I realized that I only remembered the most basic plot and had forgotten most of the beautiful parts.
I think the writing is beautiful. You really get into the characters: thier backgrounds, feelings, motivations. Even the mean Senora's thoughts are explained. I love many of the characters in this book. The pro...more
I think the writing is beautiful. You really get into the characters: thier backgrounds, feelings, motivations. Even the mean Senora's thoughts are explained. I love many of the characters in this book. The pro...more
This could well be a "Novella" on a Spanish-language channel, minus all the sex: a deliciously evil matriarch, a handsome son, a handsome, well-educated and exotic Indian and a pretty, pious adopted daughter who knows nothing of her half-breed heritage . . . Written in the 1870's about post-Mission era southern California, the style is melodramatic and the characters somewhat stereotypical, but the setting is historically pretty accurate. The bad guys are the American Traders as they proceed to...more
There's a backstory here! While reading Passing Strange, I found a reference to Ramona (the novel shares the theme of interracial love). I couldn't help but be curious when I saw the author's name. Helen Hunt Jackson was my grandmother's maiden name. As she was born in 1889, not too long after Ramona became a popular sensation, I thought it impossible that her newspaper-publishing father (Andrew Jackson, my great-grandfather) could not have known about Jackson when he named his eldest daughter....more
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The propaganda classic of 1884. Jackson intended to stir American sympathies for the plight of Native Americans, which probably explains the flat perfection of her Indian protagonists, Ramona and her lover/husband Alessandro. The two are hounded pillar to post by greedy American settlers, with no recourse to law and no protection from church or state.
I'd give the first half of the book five stars and the second half three. What gives it five stars? (1) The setting: Old California, just after the...more
I'd give the first half of the book five stars and the second half three. What gives it five stars? (1) The setting: Old California, just after the...more
I read this when I was about 14 as my folks ordered it from the state library along with others for our summer reads (we lived in the country away from libraries) and my mother had read it when she was young. Am afraid I also saw it as a romance as she did but I did see the brutality in the treatment of the Indians in it as well. I reread it a few years back and after reading some on Helen H Jackson learned more about where she was coming from in her writing of it.
It is well written and a good...more
It is well written and a good...more
I had a hard time with this book. The political issues overpowered character development and plot which made the whole book slow and a little boring.
I really enjoyed this book. The reviews are a mixed bag and I wonder if it is because I grew up passing Rancho Camulos (the house which inspired the novel) frequently or if it was the setting which was part of my childhood? When she described the aroma of the pepper trees, I knew exactly what she was talking about. I appreciated the perspective of what life was like for the Franciscans and the Indians AFTER the initial fervor of their arrival and they actually had to LIVE their Faith. I thought...more
I enjoyed this book. I first read it when I was in high school and was enthralled by both the history and the love story. There is definitely some unrealistic romanticizing of the Spanish era in California, which is why I gave it only 3 stars, but it's a good book nonetheless. If you are only familiar with this story via the Ramona Pageant (produced each spring in Hemet, California), I recommend you read the book to get the actual story, since the play is quite a bit different in parts (I should...more
I read this after visiting Seven Falls in Colorado Springs and seeing numerous plaques saying things like "This is where Helen Hunt Jackson wrote her famous novel Ramona." It was quite romantic, if a little slow in places. A moving depiction of the horrific actions of the Americans toward the Mexicans, and of them both toward the Indians, back when the US took over California. It's actually rather shocking to me that this novel was as insanely popular as it was back then, considering the anti-Am...more
I finally finished Ramona the other night. It's actually a really interesting book dealing with California and northern Mexico during the time of the Spanish Missions and when the US government was taking all the land from the Native Americans.
The title character, Ramona, falls in love with the Indian Alessandro, who has come to work on the ranch where she was raised. She is forbidden by her guardian (she's an orphan) to marry him, but she and Alessandro take off and make a life together anyway...more
The title character, Ramona, falls in love with the Indian Alessandro, who has come to work on the ranch where she was raised. She is forbidden by her guardian (she's an orphan) to marry him, but she and Alessandro take off and make a life together anyway...more
I found this treasure in a newspaper article about books every Californian should read. As a descendant of Europeans, Mexicans and Indians (of Mexico and California), I found this book interesting on a personal level. My genealogy research has always provided me with just the facts – vital statistics, sometimes a physical description and an occupation. I had hoped that my Indian ancestors were treated well, but after reading Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, I suspect otherwise. California’s Indians we...more
Sep 23, 2011
Jennannej
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
those with interest in Southern California History
Shelves:
california
Part adventure, part history, part love story, part tragedy. The story of Ramona is set in the waning of Spanish California and the beginning of American California. Ramona is caught up in the tangle of races found in Southern California - Mexican, Spanish, Indian and American.
It's an old fashioned love story, a bit slow in parts, but with a noble and pure hero and heroine. Indian Alessandro and part-Indian Ramona flee prejudice and intolerance and try to survive.
While I found this book intere...more
It's an old fashioned love story, a bit slow in parts, but with a noble and pure hero and heroine. Indian Alessandro and part-Indian Ramona flee prejudice and intolerance and try to survive.
While I found this book intere...more
(contains spoilers!)
One of the first "grown-up" book I read as a child, I re-read it again from time to time, as I have just done, and love it as much each time as I did the first time I read it.
I've climbed Mt. San Jacinto the hard way (there's a cable car...), and roamed over many of the old hiking trails of the southern California mountains, and Ramona and Alessandro have been with me, at least somewhere in the back of my mind. The story led me to W.W. Robinson's works on the southern Califo...more
One of the first "grown-up" book I read as a child, I re-read it again from time to time, as I have just done, and love it as much each time as I did the first time I read it.
I've climbed Mt. San Jacinto the hard way (there's a cable car...), and roamed over many of the old hiking trails of the southern California mountains, and Ramona and Alessandro have been with me, at least somewhere in the back of my mind. The story led me to W.W. Robinson's works on the southern Califo...more
This may be the most extraordinary book I have ever read. I grew up in Hemet where the Ramona Pageant is performed, the official play of California. Reading this book was like finding out more about an old friend.
Certainly, the story is heart-breaking and terrible, but it is also wonderful. I was fairly sure that no story about Native Americans taking place in the 1890's would NOT end in tragedy, so I prepared myself. The terrible hardships and injustices Ramona and Alessandro suffered were diff...more
Certainly, the story is heart-breaking and terrible, but it is also wonderful. I was fairly sure that no story about Native Americans taking place in the 1890's would NOT end in tragedy, so I prepared myself. The terrible hardships and injustices Ramona and Alessandro suffered were diff...more
I didn't like this at first, but it grew on me. Anyone who cares to reasearch this book will see that Ms. Jackson wrote this to inform the American public about the horrendous crimes committed against Native Americans. It is set in Southern California shortly after America's victory in the Mexican American war
Unfortunately, very little happens, and the relationships between characters are presented in a Victorian, overwrought and overly prudent manner. The main love interest, Alessandro, the so...more
Unfortunately, very little happens, and the relationships between characters are presented in a Victorian, overwrought and overly prudent manner. The main love interest, Alessandro, the so...more
Sometimes I wonder if there's a point to reviewing older novels. I mean - there's obviously a point to reading them, and Ramona presents a good case for that. But after reading a book like this it's hard to imagine that others haven't read it, or something like it... until I remember that until this past semester, I'd never even heard of Ramona.
For those of you who, like me, had never thought to pick this book up let me just say that it will frustrate, awe, and inspire you. The story is one that...more
For those of you who, like me, had never thought to pick this book up let me just say that it will frustrate, awe, and inspire you. The story is one that...more
I loved it. A beautiful but tragic romance between two lovers (one a half-breed, the other a Native American) during the time American settlers took over California displacing the Native Americans, Mexicans, and Spanish landowners who had been living there.
Helen Hunt Jackson really paints a vivid picture of what life was like during those times in California and the horrors of being cast of one's land using cruel and injustice tactics.
I can understand why Alessandro withers away from the man he...more
Helen Hunt Jackson really paints a vivid picture of what life was like during those times in California and the horrors of being cast of one's land using cruel and injustice tactics.
I can understand why Alessandro withers away from the man he...more
Great literature is Great in lieu of that notion that such books worthy of this distinction are virtually guaranteed to satisfy; more so to absorb as much as is given. Helen Hunt Jackson’s Romana can be considered among those ranks, as it stands the test of time, on through the new generations of readers such as myself, and thankfully so. This book is like a perfectly aged wine in that it only grows sweeter with an artful bitter undertone, the further you get in the narrative, the more time th...more
My mother recommended this book to me when I was a romantic teenager. I read it then and again when I was an adult living in San Diego. At that time, there was a building in 'Old Town' San Diego that purported to be where Ramona was wed to her love, later disproven. Very romantic, historical, a good read at any age, tragic and sad, if I remember correctly. It has been a long time since I read it but I do remember that it treated some timeless and serious issues. Not your ordinary 'romantic novel...more
Ramona started out well and pulled me in; it looked like it was going to win at least four stars, if not five. I was impressed with the characters, the beautiful descriptions of California, and the sweet love story that was developing. I feel like the story started to go downhill from the middle. As Ramona goes through one hardship after another you wonder if it will ever stop and it doesn't.
Also in the interest of playing up the plight of the American Indians in the late 18th century, Helen Hu...more
Also in the interest of playing up the plight of the American Indians in the late 18th century, Helen Hu...more
Oct 12, 2008
Caitlin
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Those who are interested in colonial California or period civil rights comentary.
Recommended to Caitlin by:
My thesis research
This took a LONG time to read, but was ultimately pretty good. On the surface, its basically a historic romance novel and the writing is *terribly* fluffy (melodrama is no understatement, though it does become more honestly emotional toward the end.) If you can get past the flowery period writing though, the plot is unusual and never too predictable. Jackson does a lot of obvious soap-boxing for the cause of the noble Indian, and as a historical study of civil rights comentary it is pretty fasci...more
I recently visited Rancho Camulos, the setting of where most of the book took place. It was fun to read the book after visiting here, it made the story all that more real, even thought the charater of Ramona was fictional. It also brought home the all the changes this area of California has under gone over the past century and the consequences it has had on the Native American Indians and Mexicans living in this area following the acquisition of California by the United States.
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Helen Maria Hunt Jackson was an American writer best known as the author of Ramona, a novel about the ill treatment of Native Americans in Southern California, and as an activist for Native American rights
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“Next time!" In what calendar are kept the records of those next times which never come?”
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“The wild mustard in Southern California is like that spoken of in the New Testament. . . . Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold is in the pocket.”
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