Life and Death of Harriet Frean

by May Sinclair

“In a few short pages,” writes Francine Prose in her Introduction, “May Sinclair succeeds in rendering the oppressive weight and strength of the chains of family love.” Young Harriett Frean is taught that “behaving beautifully” is paramount, and she becomes a self-sacrificing woman whose choices prove devastating to herself and to those who love her most. An early pioneer of
stream-of-consciousness writing, Sinclair employs the technique brilliantly in this finely crafted psychological novel. Evoking the style and depth of her contemporaries Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, Sinclair’s haunting narrative also reflects her keen interest in the theories of Jung and Freud. The text of this Modern Library 20th Century Rediscovery was set from the first American edition of 1922.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, 20th Century, Historical Fiction, Novella, British Literature, Womens

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

May Sinclair was the pseudonym of Mary Amelia St. Clair, a popular British writer who wrote about two dozen novels, short stories and poetry. She was an active suffragist, and member of the Woman Writers' Suffrage League. May Sinclair was also a significant critic, in the area of modernist poetry and prose and she is attributed with first using the term stream of consciousness) in a literary context, when reviewing the first volumes of Dorothy Richardson's novel sequence Pilgrimage (1915–67), in The Egoist, April 1918.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this from the notorious 1001 Books you Must Read or We Will Put Your Household Pets in a Food Blender We Are Serious. I know some people do not like that list much but this slender bitter novel from 1922 would have otherwise passed me by completely.

This novel is a ferocious yet so genteelly understated attack on that exalted Victorian female virtue of self-denial. The idea is that you live a life of private misery because you do nothing to make your parents or anyone else the least bit upset ever. Never assert, never disagree, don’t marry the person you love, nothing for you, everything for them. And you revel in this secret pathological abnegation with all the pervy thrill of a hairshirted medieval monk. The more unhappy you are because you’re not doing anything you want to do the happier you are because you know you’re such a good good good person. May Sinclair then gives this a magnificent further twist – and by these actions, or non-actions, you compound the unhappiness of the very people you think you’re making happy by your self-denial.

This was great. Bleak, bitter, short - what's not to like here? Read in a couple of hours, but will glow in my mind for years to come.

[Agnieszka · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange little book it was. It spans the whole life, almost seventy years, of the title protagonist but it reads more like as a report of a single day, at most some hours. Harriett Frean was born and brought up in loving family, Mamma and Papa taught her to act and behave beautifully and indicated it as paramount virtue in life. She took that advice to her heart and lived her life quietly, at all cost trying to satisfy parents’ expectations, rejecting own chance for love, not noticing damages she made on her way because in front of her eyes there continually were parents and Hatty always wanted to be like her Mamma. Years passed and Papa deceased and Harriett couldn’t acknowledge that he himself didn’t behave that beautifully, later Mamma died because Harriett was too selfish to see what could be better for her and one day she herself died either. And we saw her life come full circle and it was everything but beautiful thing.

The novel reads like an accusation of Victorian morality and rules, that hypocrysy and glorification of rejecting personal happiness in the name of something that you can’t even name it, that belief of self-sacrifice and self-denial to be the most noble and beautiful thing. Harriett idolises her parents, and while it’s nothing new for most children do not want to upset them, she doesn’t evince any need to have own opinion on anything and in fact never really grows out of her blind conformability. Actually she may never have existed so unimpressive, futile and meaningless her life was, and she herself more and more dependant, at first from her parents later from her maid.

But the novel has quite contemporary repercussion. We all know such a people who can't allow their children to live on their own, who can't admit it's time to finally cut umbilical cord. And the other way round, there are such individuals amongst us that can live only fulfilling parents desires and pleasing them is their only aim. I thought it was quite remarkable novel, it made me simultaneously sad and angry, I was furious at Harriet but I could pity her either. It was disturbing, it was ironic, and bitter and poignant as well. It achieved more with its brevity than other novels with plenty pages, it was low-keyed yet left me with real emotions. And when you reach last page and consider Harriett's empty life only then you can fully comprehend ironic overtone of nursery rhyme the novel starts with:

Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been
I’ve been to London, to see the Queen.
Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you there?
I caught a little mouse under the chair…

Have you seen the Queen, Hatty?

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
This is a brief novella; readable in one or two sittings and was written by May Sinclair in 1922. It was Sinclair who coined the term “stream of consciousness” when reviewing Dorothy Richardson. Sinclair was a suffragist and modernist who also was influenced by Freud and psychoanalysis. Sinclair is an accomplished novelist, but most of her work is rather puzzlingly out of print.
This is a study of the Victorian notion of women and their role. The story of Harriet Frean’s life from birth to death, and a look at self-sacrifice and self-denial. She is brought up in a particular way and to behave properly; here is her father speaking to her;
“His arm tightened, drawing her closer. And the kind, secret voice went on. “Forget ugly things. Understand, Hatty, nothing is forbidden. We don’t forbid, because we trust you to do what we wish. To behave beautifully…”
All this helps to create her identity. There are also some passages which may have deeper meaning;
“Mamma would come in carrying the lighted candle. Her face shone white between her long, hanging curls. She would stoop over the cot and lift Harriett up, and her face would be hidden in curls. That was the kiss-me-to-sleep kiss. And when she had gone Harriett lay still again, waiting. Presently Papa would come in, large and dark in the firelight. He stooped and she leapt up into his arms. That was the kiss-me-awake kiss; it was their secret. Then they played. Papa was the Pussycat and she was the little mouse in her hole under the bed-clothes. They played till Papa said, “No more!” and tucked the blankets tight in.
“Now you’re kissing like Mamma—””

Harriet idealises her parents; as most children do; but most children grow out of that idealisation, Harriet doesn’t. In many ways she doesn’t need to enter the adult world and tends to approach it very tentatively;

“She wasn't sure that she liked dancing. There was something obscurely dangerous about it. She was afraid of being lifted off her feet and swung on and on, away from her safe, happy life. She was stiff and abrupt with her partners, convinced that none of those men who liked Connie Hancock could like her, and anxious to show them that she didn't expect them to. She was afraid of what they were thinking. And she would slip away early, running down the garden to the gate at the bottom where her father waited for her. She loved the still coldness of the night under the elms, and the strong, tight feel of her father's arm when she hung on it leaning towards him, and his "There we are!" as he drew her closer. Her mother would look up from the sofa and ask always the same question, "Well, did anything nice happen?"
We also have to remember all we see as readers is filtered by Harriet; there is no omniscient narrator. It does, however enable the reader to see how Harriet supresses her own feelings and desires. When she does fall in love (a love that is reciprocated) it is with the fiancé of her best friend. Needless to say, Harriet behaves beautifully and retains her view of herself. Consequently all three parts of the triangle are made miserable.
Harriet shrivels as she grows older and overall the whole is rather bleak; Harriet never really becomes a person in her own right. Her parents remain with her as does the expectations she feels society has of her. It is a modernist treatment of Victorian repression as well as an examination of the role of women in Victorian society.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This could well be the banner for living a life of quiet desperation.



May Sinclair 1898

(Mary Amelia St. Clair, 1863-1946)

Superficially, it is a nothing little book: a child is born, grows up leading a quiet, privileged life, and then seventy-odd years later dies as quietly as a falling leaf. That is the story. Nothing happens. Nothing moves. No breath of wind. No rustling skirt. No shouting children. No gnashing of teeth. No joy. No pain. Nothing. As smooth as proverbial glass, this life unfolds.

There is anguish, and loss, and failure and disappointment; and much unhappiness and heartache and despair, but they all unfold as quietly as the drawing of a veil: all these strong, crippling emotions are felt just below the epidermis, for not a ripple of it breaks the skin into a smile, a tear, a frown.

Oh, it's such a frustrating little nothing of a book.

And it is one of the saddest little books I've ever read.

This started as a 3-rating; then moved to 4; and is teetering dangerously on the edge of 5, because while it took me an hour to read, it's been eating away at my heart for the better part of 48; worming its insidious little thoughts into my heart and brain, while I reflect on the nothing-life of Harriet Frean.

This is what an entitled life looks like, ladies and gents. It's a circus act for the rest of us. We gaze, and wonder and admire and envy from a distance. And yet, there is no hell like this one.

Reflective of the privileged "nothing lives" of women who had no choice or voice in a previous era, it is just as effective today, albeit for different reasons; for at that time, it was a still life of a woman; today, it is the most horror-laden of cautionary tales.

Oh, what the hell. This one deserves a full 5 stars.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

In about eighty pages, Sinclair relates a whole life, one constrained because the title character never separates from her parents, not even after their deaths. Harriet’s charm as a child is squashed by her not desiring to ever make her parents unhappy. Freudian matters are hinted at; they’ll be recalled near the end. Harriet lives on her perceived importance of her father, writer of one book. She prides herself on her unselfishness after her one romance, the consequences of which are brutal to others. Harriet feels a sort of ecstasy when she knows what will likely be the death of her. She sees what she wants to see.

While the story may be a comment on the Victorian Age’s ideal of keeping a woman as innocent as a child, the psychology of it goes beyond that and could be applicable to a family of any time period.

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?
"I've been to London, to see the Queen.
"Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you do there?
"I caught a little mouse under the chair."

Baby Harriett (Frean) laughs everytime her mother recites this to her. Her parents wonder what it is here which their baby finds funny.

The very first novel I've read which starts with a nursery rhyme.

Later, after about an hour of nonstop reading, Harriet Frean is already 68 years old, dying of the same cancer which killed her mother years before.

If Solzhenitsyn's "One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is a novel which reads like a lifetime but which supposedly happened only in a single day, this one is about a lifetime which reads like it just happened in an hour. The narrative is arresting despite the economy of words, entirely different but close in tone with another unforgettable miniature, Alessandro Baricco's "Silk."

If you read this while still young, you'd wish you'd never grow old. If you read this when old, you'd pray that you won't remember. Or if you remember, that there'd be nothing now which would tell you that some things you've done in the past, especially those you thought were right or beautiful or principled were actually horrible mistakes or acts of cruelty or selfishness.

An hour or so is all what you need to finish reading this book, but it may take you one lifetime to forget it.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. I got the edition (Modern Library-20th Century Rediscovery) with an Introduction by Francine Prose who I like and respect as a writer and reviewer.

Harriett Frean from childhood is a good little girl who listens to her mother and father. She gives up the man she loves, and the man who loves her, because being taught by her mother and father, she learns it was the right thing to do. As it turns out, nobody benefits from her selfless act. The book follows Harriett from cradle to grave (or at the moment she is dying).

The back cover characterizes the book as including a stream of consciousness style. It’s interesting when I looked up ‘stream of consciousness’ (I didn’t know exactly what it was 🙁 😐) I came across this blurb:
• Considered the pioneer of the stream-of-consciousness technique, 20th century British author Dorothy Richardson was the first author to publish a full-length stream-of-consciousness novel: Pointed Roofs. In fact, it was in reviewing Pointed Roofs that British author May Sinclair first coined the term ‘stream-of-consciousness’ in April 1918.
• “On one side was the little grey river, on the other long wet grass repelling and depressing. Not far ahead was the roadway which led, she supposed to the farm where they were to drink new milk. She would have to walk with someone when they came to the road, and talk. She wondered whether this early morning walk would come, now, every day. Her heart sank at the thought.” from Pointed Roofs

This is a quick read...only 86 pages. It was worth the read. 🙂 I need to read more of her (NYRB and Virago Modern Classics re-issued ‘Mary Olivier: A Life; Virago had also reissued Life and Death of Harriett Frean) ...

This book seems like it could be a bit autobiographical in that May Sinclair had to support her five brothers who had a congenital heart disease, and her mother, and never married.

Reviews:
• (Interesting and good review...) https://bookssnob.wordpress.com/2010/...
• https://www.stuckinabook.com/life-and...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2013/...
• https://interestingliterature.com/201...

To learn more about her: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Sin...

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

On an intellectual level I understood the purpose of this book. The notion that from infancy Harriet (standing for womankind) has had to be good, which is the manifestation of constant self-sacrifice and repressing ones wants and desires. I don’t dispute that notion, in fact just a dip of one’s toe into feminist dialogue will show how ingrained and problematic the call for girls to ‘be kind’ is. Women who don’t learn this lesson are labelled hard, cruel and worse and there is always a sense of shock and opprobrium towards women who act selfishly or arguably put their own needs first (depending on how you view it) and so I can see the intention to expose and challenge this belief system.
My issue is that I couldn’t go along with the examples which made Harriet seem churlish and to my mind insufferable. As a child she is told to let her friend play with her favourite doll and although she doesn’t want to she concedes to her mother’s reminder to be good. That evening to avoid having to face a similar experience she boxes up her doll and leaves it untouched thus depriving herself of the joy she got from it. I see the symbolism but I think it’s weak as I don’t think the expectation to share is unreasonable. Similarly the big event that shapes her adult life is the rejection of a marriage proposal from her best friend’s finace. Now while I can be persuaded to align my opinion with that of Harriet’s friend, namely that by not following her desire and accepting she had made multiple people unhappy again I think this is a bad example as it is conflating loyalty and integrity, an inner sense of what is right with the notion of repression and self-denial. I think even the most liberated woman might consider it reprehensible to marry your best friend’s husband-to-be.
Harriet was so smug, superior and vacuous that I found myself being grateful she didn’t live a more active life where she could go around draining those she made contact with of the will to live.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an odd, short novel that spans the whole life of Harriet Frean. She is an only child brought up in the Victorian era by her loving, intellectual parents. She must never behave in an ugly way, and mustn't be grasping. She is immensely proud of her parents and never really breaks away from them and their values, even later in life, where we begin to see that her self-service may have ruined more than one life; but what else could she have done?

[Bill on GR Sabbatical · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harriett Frean personifies the self-sacrificing virtues of Victorian womanhood in this interesting take on the repression of women by feminist writer Sinclair. The repercussions of her decision to reject the proposal of her best friend's fiance play out tragically down through the years for all involved.

[❀ Rose ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
Very interesting to analyze.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The graceful, simple writing wastes no time in making understood Harriett Frean's upbringing, her idolization of her mother and the desire to emulate a passed down sense of beauty and moral courage. This book will stick with me, I will probably analise Harriett's life with more interest than she did.

[Nate D · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a denunciation of the Victorian-era ideal daughter, dutiful to the point of total self-negation, this probably had considerable bite in its era. Nowadays, the protagonist seems almost mythologically empty, unable and unwilling to ever form any personality, goals, or really any relationship to the world whatsoever beyond a veneration of her father and the love she heroically (destroyingly) denied herself. In its singleminded satire of a long-buried standard, I found it totally depressing, stifling, but perhaps illuminating of that certain (stifling, depressing) mindset.

[Jena · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
"To be good was to be beautiful"
The Victorian equation between outward beauty and inward character is fascinating. While the characters of this novel would not hold up to our ideals of the modern day feminist, in fact may act against those ideals, The Life and Death of Harriet Frean is undoubtedly a feminist novel. Though Harriet holds no strong beliefs, and her life wanders without much of her input, this itself is a commentary on the state of the world at the time in which this novel was written, as well on how women were raised to behave. I am honestly shocked at how much I enjoyed this, admittedly mundane, story. The character's were sad, yet relatable, and revealed quite a bit about how far feminism has come.

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very strange book, but one with quite an important message to be had.
'Life and Death of Harriet Frean' follows our lead from the day she is born until the day she dies. It chronicles her hopes, desires, adoration of her parents and horror at being the love object of her best friend's husband. Each chapter is a few years ahead, and it's rather poignant to watch Harriet's slow decline as she loses first one, then both of her beloved parents and has to contend with living alone.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devastating. Cautionary. Proto-Anita Brookner.

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reread The Life and Death of Harriett Frean for my thesis, as Sinclair is an author whom I am focusing on. I loved the book the first time around, and my second encounter with it was no different. First published in 1922, elements of the novella feel incredibly modern. I love the way in which Harriett is followed from her early childhood until her last days. Sinclair's account of the life of a fictionalised Victorian woman, who goes against gender stereotypes in several ways, is a joy and delight; her characterisation is exquisite.

[Peter Nelson-King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally written 12/31/19:

I typically avoid making a judgment of the best book of the year for the simple reason that I don't follow new books. I keep up with movies well enough (and Parasite appears to be the best this year) but I hate waiting months for library holds for new books and can't afford to drop $30 for the hardback, so budget and esoteric tastes means that I usually read old used books. That being said, I'm prompted to break my silence to talk about the surprise best book I read this year, "Life and Death of Harriet Frean" by May Sinclair.

I wasn't familiar with Sinclair's work before - she was just another once-famous Edwardian author whose name I'd seen pop up in roll-calls, and I'd glanced at one of her ghost stories a while back. This particular book came to my attention after being mentioned on the podcast Backlisted as an early Modernist gem, and also for being quite short. Yesterday I snagged a 1922 first edition of it at Powell's Books in Portland, and read it in full that evening - and let me tell you, rarely has a book flown out of nowhere to bowl me over like this one.

At a mere 130 pages, Sinclair gives us the sweep of the life of one ordinary woman, one who achieved little but whose passions and heartbreaks are rendered so swiftly and faultlessly you can't believe why other books flounder and sputter so poorly in comparison. From birth to death Harriet Frean is no more than herself, groping through existence and trying for the best with the handful of people who mean the most to her. Her story is one of small wonders and missed opportunities, peaking on minor tragedies born out of the intrigues of politely flawed lives. What makes her life sing is Sinclair's prose, which is some of the most assured, graceful and effective narrative writing I've ever seen.

Starting back last December when I read Isabel Paterson's exquisite Never Ask The End, I've been on a fruitful kick of first-wave female Modernist authors: Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, Emily Holmes Coleman, Kay Boyle, Babette Deutsch, and others. Sinclair is a satellite to them more than a full member, though she was an important early champion of Imagist poetry and invented the term "stream of consciousness" when describing Dorothy Richardson's novel cycle Pilgrimage, a white whale that I have yet to harpoon. Very little of her work is in print, which is why I'm so grateful the reading community has kept Harriet Frean available to new fans. This past year I've spent many an hour floating down rivers of lush prose, such as with Mrs. Dalloway and Plagued by the Nightingale, but in their efforts to dazzle the books feel, in the succeeding weeks, like wild parties that I can't remember how I returned from. Harriet Frean is as smooth and perfect as a silk scarf, and its drama cuts like a guillotine. The skill builds even through the last page, so much so that, with a single final word, an avalanche of sympathy and melancholy crashes on the reader and flings them into space.

The best comparison I can draw is to another favorite novel of mine, Waking, by the German-British author Eva Figes. In a series of late-night scenes, Figes depicts the whole adult life of an ordinarily sad woman, wrapped in tragic privacy like a cocoon. Harriet Frean isn't as experimental as the later book, but why let showy Modernism get in the way of perfection? I frequently return to an anecdote about Kingsley Amis who, when criticising his son Martin's books to his face, yelled, "Why can't you write more sentences like 'They finished their drinks and left'?!" There are many small sentences in Harriet Frean, but they are contrasts and wingmen to longer ones an help give the prose a true rhythm as opposed to a haphazard collection of speedbumps or a flat line of orderly phrases. That's unbelievable skill and restraint, and I can't believe so many authors are too gutless to even attempt it.

Read Life and Death of Harriet Frean; read it now and treasure it forever. It's always nice to find a novel one can read in a sitting, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a novel that accomplishes so much in so little time. Frean's life was small and mediocre, but it happens to all of us, and Sinclair was a great enough artist to show how important recognizing each other's smallness really is.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard to 'like' a novel that so ruthlessly and efficiently constructs a woman's cage of self-deprivation and extreme self-effacement to the point of near disappearance. As social critique it is devastating in its effectiveness; as a rainy Saturday afternoon read it was not the best choice. (2.5)

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay so even though I only gave this 3 stars I'm still really glad I read it. The author, May Sinclair, was a poppin' writer, feminist, and suffragette in the early 1900s who was hugely influential to modernist literature but she's almost completely forgotten. She wrote over 23 novels, 39 short stories, a couple poetry collections, and some crucial literary criticism. In fact, she was the first one to use the term "stream-of-consciousness" in a literary sense. Along with all this her books were actually popular and sold well back then. But for some reason while everyone is busting a nut about Joyce she goes undiscussed.

Now let's dive into the actual book. I didn't love it but it presented interesting and honest look into the lives of a lot of British women at this time. I think the coolest part is that the book seems really passive and nonthreatening but there's so much more beneath the surface. I'm in the process of writing a paper on it right now and I'm totally tearing it up. There's just so much material. Sinclair manages to create a really confrontational novel while keeping it subtle enough to get it published and interesting enough to attract mainstream success (at least at that time).

While Sinclair's female characters aren't as much fun as Agatha Christie's unapologetic, spunky Tuppence, they're still so important in a feminist context. Instead of uplifting the females who break the mold, as many feminist writers do, she shows the harmful effects that befall those women who can't break free. This is crucial because we can't forget that the majority of the women of this time suffered in silence.

tl;dr: May Sinclair is an A+ very cool lady who wrote about very important things

[Nenette · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title says it all...The story started when Harriett Frean was a baby and her mother cooed over her, reciting a nursery rhyme. It ended when she was dying at the age of sixty-eight, while she listened to the same nursery rhyme from somewhere at the back of her head, and her last words were "Mamma".  If the author had made the title "The Life and Death of Spinster Harriett Frean", then there's nothing more to say in this review.

Harriett was an old maid; otherwise, hers was a very ordinary life.  It's amusing that a story can be woven out of something ordinary; it's even part of Project Gutenberg!  Probably, it was really the author's idea to write a story about the ordinary life of an "almost recluse".  Somehow it has to be told; somehow the world has to know that there are many Harriett Freans out there.

In her life story, one thing stands out:  Harriett never wanted to disappoint.  When she was a little girl, she vowed to always obey her parents because she saw firsthand how disappointed they can be when she disobeyed.  As a woman, she chose to let go of the man she loved to protect her best friend.  But her desire to please did not always end in a happy note, as one of the characters bluntly pointed out to her.  In the end, she was all alone.

We have a lot of old maids in our family.  I have an old aunt who lives with her cats.  She has opened her house to boarders so technically, she doesn't live alone.  But boarders come and go, so she really does not have deep relationships with anyone in her household.  This story made me think about her, and if there's anything good that came out of it, it's my renewed vow to not forget to keep in touch with her.

[Safae · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who is Harriett Frean? she is, what many would consider, an insignificant woman with no past no present and no future.
Her life is so empty, the book reminded me of the curious case of Benjamin Button , which contained an insignificant life as well.
There are a lot of lessons that you could learn from this book, such as never be too good, never give up your dreams , and be yourself.
Harriett seemed to me that she hadn't developed a personality of her own in her entire life, the book began with Harriett the child , and she hadn't grown a year ever since.
She was so dependent of her parents, her whole world consisted of them, she regarded them as perfect people and she never wanted anything else while with them.
Harriett's education surrounded her with bars of protection from the outside world ,which soon become bars that were imprisoning her.

[Debi Cates · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Mamma, did Pussycat see the Queen?"

This feels like the saddest book in the shortest number of pages that I've ever read. And yet, all that happened was Pussycat was distracted by the smallest, least important of things. Pussycat bragged that it went to London to see the Queen, but hardly realized that it did not actually, in fact, see the Queen or anything remotely as worthy of doing.

Not a word too many, not a leitmotif too insignificant, not a thought too small to be tangled, untangled, then tangled again. Not a single beautiful thing remaining undestroyed by the end of the life of Miss Harriett Frean.

May Sinclair, I love you.

86 perfect pages of a blurred life that strove only to behave beautifully and not be selfish.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel from 1922 that I gulped down in less than a day. The slimness of the volume and the generous margins helped (it's really more of a novella), but the prose was also nicely pellucid and readable. Although the story is sad, and has a very specific point to make about how Harriet's typically stifling (upper middle class) Victorian upbringing shapes her life, the fine spareness of the writing keeps the book from being heavy-handed and kept me turning the pages.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An engaging, sad, gentle novella about Harriet Frean. Harriet is brought up by her middle class parents to behave ‘beautifully’. Harriet is a woman who cannot allow herself to destroy her parent’s child. First published in 1922.

[Catherine Vamianaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sad short novel about the life of Harriet. She was dependent on her parents and wasted her life and wanted to please others. If she had made a different decision, she would have been happier. It can be read pleasantly in one sitting. An enjoyable story about Victorian morals.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entire lifetime in 138 pages. A concise, poignant look at the dangers of being who we think we should be rather than truly living.

[Il Priorato Dei Bibliofili · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5⭐

La piccola e ribelle Harriett viene educata dalla sua famiglia secondo la morale vittoriana della sua epoca: privata della possibilità di essere fanciulla, si annulla totalmente per ricevere l'approvazione degli amati genitori.

Diventerà un'adulta fragile, insicura ed austera incapace di riconoscere i suoi bisogni e desideri.

"𝑺𝒊 𝒆𝒓𝒂 𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒂 𝒅𝒊 𝒍𝒆𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒈𝒏𝒊 𝒍𝒊𝒃𝒓𝒐 𝒄𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒗𝒂, 𝒑𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒉é 𝒊𝒍 𝒔𝒖𝒐 𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒐𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒏 𝒔𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒗𝒂 𝒅𝒊 𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒖𝒕𝒐".

Vita e morte di Harriet Frean è un'opera tardiva di Mary Sinclair, scritta alla soglia dei sessant'anni dell'autrice, in cui viene raccontata la storia dell'intera vita della protagonista, portata a vivere una "non vita" per compiacere le ferree regole morali dell'epoca.

Un'opera di notevole rilievo che illustra con profonda chiarezza la condizione della donna nell'epoca vittoriana, lasciando il lettore impotente di fronte ad una protagonista che pur di restare fedele ai rigidi canoni della sua società è disposta a condannarsi ad una vita arida ed infelice.

[Shanu · Rating 4 out of 5]

REVIEW FULL OF SPOILERS


Harriett Frean is an only child and she thinks highly of her papa and her mamma. As she grows older, she starts to think highly of herself. In her mind she is above all of her friends because her father is intellectual, her mother is elegant and she (herself) is such a good child.

later in life, she falls in love with her friend's fiancé but she refuses to act upon it at it would destroy her friend's life. Because of this choice, she has an even higher opinion of herself.

as the years pass, she is happy to see her friend's wedding turning into a failure but she is at the same time sad to have given up on Robin.

Her father dies after ruining his forture and his friend's one as well, and his perfect image in harriett's mind is ruined.
Harriett's mother's dies as well and Harriett will learn that her mother's illness could have been diagnosed and cured if harriett hadn't been in such denial over everything.

Robin's niece, a young fierce lady, comes to visit and tells Harriett that her "noble choice" (of not marrying robin) was nothing but selfishness and that it ruined robin/prissie/beatie and her own life.

Harriett who was so sure of herself till now, grows insecure. She ends up being and old stiff spinster afraid of changes, afraid of being too far of her house, annoyed at her friends, and she puts her life in the hands of a maid Maggie who is the total opposite of what she was at her age.

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When I was a very young child, i made a promise to myself to never become like my parents (or any other old folk for that matter) - or any stoic adult for that matter - but as i grow older, i can definitely see that whatever i do, i will become a grumpy old twat. I'm starting to get irritated at the "new hits" on the radio, sometimes i'm scared of teenagers, i confuse innocence with ignorance, i feel like i know it all, and on and on. It saddens me really.

Harriett on the other hand, wanted to become like her idolized mother and she did, but she was still disappointed.

Bottom lime, there's not really a right and wrong choice in life, there will always be ups and downs. So whatever you do, embrace it, deal with the consequences and make your best to be happy. This was a really good book and i'm glad i read it.

[Karim Anani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't get how it's been eleven years since I read The Life and Death of Harriett Frean, but it has been eleven, and the book has lingered.

I originally read it for a class, and found to my surprise that most of my fellow students didn't actually like it. "Nothing happened," they said.

I argued that was the point. A girl is born, grows-up, and dies after a quiet, unassuming life. But it is a quietly tumultuous one. Harriet Frean is taught to be perfect at the expense of all else. In the absence of life—in the absence of love, disagreement, joy, pain—Harriet merely exists, withering. Life passes her by because she is too afraid to do anything to upset anyone.

My classmates also saw it as a book about women in a world that's robbed them of agency, and it is that—a genteel middle-finger to Victorian and Edwardian values—but I thought it a more abstract idea: Doing the right thing at acute personal expense when the "right thing" is arbitrary and ill-defined. Viewed in that light, it's almost a horror story.

A good, compellingly written, and unfairly overlooked book, The Life and Death of Harriett Frean makes for fun afternoon reading, but comes to mind, apparently, eleven years on.