The Saracen Lamp

by Ruth M. Arthur, Margery Gill (Illustrator)

Three mistresses of an English manor, each living in a different era, relate the influence on their lives of the Saracen lamp given to the first mistress as a wedding present in 1300.

This is a book that spans six hundred years. It begins with the marriage, in about 1300, of 15 year old Melisande, a girl of Southern France, to Sir Hugh de Hervey, six years older than herself and an English knight and landowner. Melisande takes with her to England a very special lamp, a lamp of gold and jewels, made for her by a Saracen servant in her father's household. The lamp becomes the spirit and treasure of the de Hervey household.

The lamp remains at Littleperry Manor, the de Hervey estate, long after Melisande is gone and her children and her children's children are gone. It is more than two hundred years later when Alys appears, clever and vengeful Alys, who is wilfully responsible for the lamp's disappearance and with it the joy of the house.

It remains for Perdita, a girl of the present, ill, temporarily crippled, and haunted by the spirit of Alys, to wonder about the past of the house, to find a solution to its problems, and even to uncover the identity of its ghost.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens, Fiction, British Literature

210 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1970

About the author

Working name of UK writer Ruth Mabel Arthur Huggins, long active as a children's author, her career beginning with Friendly Stories (collection, 1932). Most of her early work, like the Brownie sequence -- The Crooked Brownie (1936), The Crooked Brownie in Town (1942) and The Crooked Brownie at the Seaside (1942) -- is for younger children, but with Dragon Summer (1962) and A Candle in her Room (1966) she began to write the haunting fantasy-tinged adolescent novels for which she became best known. Often featuring first-person narratives spanning multiple generations filled with echoes of centuries past.

Reviews

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

12/2011 This is one of my all-time favorites. It may well be where I first learned of The Black Death, which went on to become a passion of mine. It is certainly where I first heard of the Crusades, and where I learned about the Saracens. It's where I learned how Henry Tudor's sacking of the monasteries affected the populace at large, and any number of other historical curiosities that I was compelled to learn more about. Arthur is a fantastic writer, and her deft touch with the slightly spooky is perfect for the kid I was, and the woman I've become. I love this book beyond all reason, and when I read it now, I start to cry on about the second page and never stop with the furtive eye-wiping till I close the book with a sense of satisfaction and rightness and completion. Highly recommended, indeed.

8/2007 Sadly, this classic novel is out of print. It's a wonderful, very British story of a house and 3 women who live there separated by hundreds of years. My favorite vignette is the first, set in the times of the Crusades and the Black Death. Arthur was a master of the gooseflesh-inducing tale and is in fine form here. Highly recommended, if you can find it.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told from the perspectives of three young women, this book follows the fortunes of a family, a house, and a lamp over the course of six hundred years. Brought to England in 1300 by the beautiful Melisande, the Lamp - a symbol of love, faithfulness, and family - rests at Littleperry Manor until it is stolen in Elizabethan times by the resentful Alys. It falls to Perdita, a modern young woman, to find a way to restore what has been lost...

The Saracen Lamp closes with a beautiful description of Perdita's sense of completion in this act of restoration, and her sense of connection to her ancestors and her home. With Arthur's delicate treatment of the supernatural, her gift for understanding both the finer and baser motives of young girls, as well as her polished prose, this novel is both moving and entertaining. Its strong sense of place, with Littleperry Manor becoming almost a character in its own right, reminds the reader of the house of Green Knowe in L.M. Boston's Green Knowe Chronicles. Possibly one of Arthur's finest works.

[CLM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even as a child I liked those generational sagas, but as an adult I think about the proud man taken captive by French invaders who died in captivity.

Here is a link to my review:
http://perfectretort.blogspot.com/201...

[Sagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A re-read of a childhood favorite. I remember a mysterious tale, made all the more mysterious by my lack of knowledge of the time period. Even the name sounded rich - what exactly is a Saracen? I'm pretty sure in my head it was a brand :S

The Saracen Lamp traces the stories of three women who live in a manor house. The history of the house traces back to the 1300s, where Melisande has come of age and is on the eve of her wedding. Her best friend, a slave, was recently banished from her father's house, and she cannot understand why. She sneaks out before her wedding to visit him and he gives her a beautiful lamp as a wedding gift. The work of art stays with her all her life, through war, spiteful mother in laws, and the plague.

My thoughts now: I enjoyed the stories and I liked the period details. I'm not particularly interested in the medieval so this doesn't catch my attention in that way. It also suffered in being written in three sections, one per woman, and with Alys being so unlikeable, it drags a bit in the middle. Also, I remember liking Perdita's story the best, but this time it was most definitely Melisande who was the most interesting.

[Celeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first read by Ruth M. Arthur was A Candle in Her Room - which I loved! After that I really wanted to read her other books. The Saracen Lamp was not as satisfying. I was really interested in Melisande's story, and wanted to know more about her relationship with Joseph. I also wanted to know more about the history of the Saracen Lamp itself! What power did it actually hold? Or was its source of power Joseph's love for Melisande (which is only vaguely explored before his death). How was Perdita a ghost of the future? And how would a mere copy of the Saracen Lamp be enough for the house of Littleperry? SO MANY QUESTIONS MS. ARTHUR.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my very favorite books as a kid! I named my Barbies after the characters in this book and the names stuck.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

bumped down to three stars although I like the first medieval point of view lots, and enjoyed the third modern pov too, the Tudor part I did not enjoy reading....

[Nancy Zubiri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when I was a young girl and I loved it. It was among my first exposures to historical fiction and the story was fabulously written. A page turner.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is told in three sections, each from the point of view of an inhabitant of a house called Littleperry Manor. The house was built around 1300 for a newly wed minor noble, son and heir of a nearby great house, and his fifteen year old wife Melisande from France. Melisande comes to the house bringing the Saracen Lamp of the title, a gift from a dear friend who was a Saracen slave owned by her father but to her was like a second and less distant father. She has only one friend with her and they have to cope with Melisande's mother in law who doesn't think she is good enough for her only son Hector, although as time goes on and she gives birth to three sons and manages the house well, the MIL thaws a bit. Melisande faces a number of tragedies in her lifetime and her section closes on the greatest when the Black Death comes to the house. A supernatural element is that as Melisande grows older, with her family grown and away, and she sits alone at night in her Lady Room, she becomes aware of the presence of a ghost from the future - a young girl sitting in a wheelchair.

The second section is from the POV of Alys, a dishonest and self-centred young woman who has been taken to see the master of LittlePenny by her grandmother since she was a small girl and eventually gets a job there and becomes the close friend of the self-effacing daughter of the house. As an adult reader, it was quite clear early on that she is in fact the illegitimate daughter of the house's owner. Due to her infatuation with a young man who works there she hatches a plot when the house owner tries to make his daughter marry an older rather cloddish man. The daughter appeals to Alys to help her get out of the marriage and Alys' plan is that they run off to London with the help of the young man. She has learned that the Saracen Lamp is valuable and unbeknown to her half-sister takes it with her when she leaves, but her plans for marriage and a comfortable life with her young man funded by the sale of the lamp turn to tragedy.

In the final section, Perdita, a girl who has a leg problem is sent to recuperate at the house, nursed by her grandmother and an old retainer, who is probably a descendant of a woman who worked there in section 2. Perdita becomes rather insular and obsessed with a sampler that includes a mysterious rhyme which refers to the Saracen Lamp. Old stories say that a bad woman sold the treasure of the house and it has been an unhappy house ever since. Perdita begins to retreat into a world comprising just herself and Alys, a character she believes she has created and with whom she has conversations, but Alys more and more becomes a strong presence and it seems that the Alys of part 2 is condemned to haunt the house because of her heartless deeds. Only a young boy from Greece, whom her grandmother has sponsored, can eventually start to bring Perdita back to the real world and to motivate her to walk again.

This is an old time historical novel for children - the book dates to 1970 - which manages to convey quite a lot of factual information about the time periods. The supernatural element adds an interest that might not be there in a totally 'straight' history. However, the first section in particular has quite touching aspects to it as we go through the lifetime of Melisande from her arrival as a nervous young bride to when she has survived widowhood and other family tragedies, and that was my favourite part of the book. Overall I rate this as 4 stars.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorites from childhood!

[Glada · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in Jr High. I really liked. Honestly can't remember a lot of the story other than it was such a different kind of fiction book. Should definitely reread it.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book over the summer when I was a girl. I still remember the way the story drew me into its universe.