Ovingdean Grange: A Tale of the South Downs

by William Harrison Ainsworth, Hablot Knight Browne

Ainsworth, William Harrison, Browne, Hablot Knight

Genres: Historical Fiction

416 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1999

About the author

William Harrison Ainsworth was educated at Manchester Grammar School and later articled to a solicitor, deserting this profession for literature.

Among his best known novels are The Tower of London (1840), Old St. Paul's (1841), Windsor Castle (1843) and The Lancashire Witches (1848).

Reviews

[Finn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's nice little novel.

It's quite pleasant to read with plenty of action, and well thought-out characters and interesting places described well, yet never longwinded.

[Surreysmum · Rating 2 out of 5]

[These notes were made in 1986:]. In one sense, the sequel to Boscobel, in that this novel has at its historical core the flight of Charles II after his disastrous 1651 attempt to regain his kingdom. There is much of the same travelogue quality, especially in those parts relating to Charles himself, which makes me wonder if there were not some earlier work - "In the Footsteps of Charles" - on the fragments of which these two novels were written. Clavering Maunsel, the ostensible hero of the work, is as insipid a hero as one could possibly wish for, and Dulcie, his lady-love, doesn't have much more to distinguish her. Charles feels himself obliged to ensure that their marriage takes place, but somehow we have the feeling that the obstacles were never very serious. Some of the minor characters have some interest, notably the somewhat ambiguous Increase Micklegift, who changes sides with astonishing facility; mind you, even the prime villain is converted to Royalism by the end. No effort is made to probe the reasons for the Civil Wars, and their chief result, we would gather from this novel, was a certain inconvenience to the loyal gentry, and a general shift to a less becoming mode of dress! If a somewhat mechanical effort, yet the basic storytelling virtues are still all present in Ovingdean Grange.

[F · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book - basically because this is a historical novel with lots of local colour. It is set in the South Downs, an area of England which I do not know well, but which I intend to explore more thoroughly, using information from this book to stimulate my interest.I read various other books by W H Ainsworth when I was a teenager; this genre is my way of approaching history - I find it much easier to understand major historical events via the personal stories which are related in historical novels. What I remember about the Civil War is what I have remembered from books like this and "Children of the New Forest"!

What I would like to do now is walk some of the routes around Ovingdean described in this adventure story. No doubt it is all built up now, but trying to imagine how the landscape must have appeared in the 17 century will make my exploration of the countryside more interesting.