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Celia
Celia revolves around the titular protagonist, a disillusioned housewife in her 40s who lives in a flat with her architect husband and two children. Instead of complaining about her dull life, she creates her own private world of thoughts that no one else is allowed to enter.
- GenresFiction
420 pages, Paperback
First published January 11, 1937
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131 people want to read
About the author
E.H. Young
31 books40 followersBorn Emily Hilda Young.
Although almost completely forgotten by recent generations, E. H. Young was a best-selling novelist of her time. She was born the daughter of a shipbroker and attended Gateshead Secondary School (a higher grade school later renamed Gateshead Grammar School) and Penrhos College, Colwyn Bay, Wales. In 1902, at the age of 22, she married Arthur Daniell, a solicitor from Bristol, and moved with him to the upscale neighbourhood of Clifton.
Here, Young developed an interest in classical and modern philosophy. She became a supporter of the suffragette movement, and started publishing novels. She also began a lifelong affair with Ralph Henderson, a schoolteacher and a friend of her husband.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Young went to work, first as a stables groom and then in a munitions factory. Her husband was killed at the Battle of Ypres in 1917. The following year she moved to Sydenham Hill, London to join her lover, now the headmaster of the public school Alleyn's, and his wife in a ménage à trois. Young occupied a separate flat in their house and was addressed as 'Mrs Daniell'; this concealed the unconventional arrangement.
This change seems to have been the catalyst that she needed. Seven major novels followed, all based on Clifton, thinly disguised as 'Upper Radstowe'. The first of these was The Misses Mallett, published originally under the title The Bridge Dividing in 1922. Her 1930 novel Miss Mole won the James Tait Black Award for fiction. In the 1940s, Young also wrote books for children, Caravan Island (1940) and River Holiday (1942).
After Henderson's retirement and the death of his wife, Young moved with him to Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire. They never married. During the Second World War, she worked actively in air raid precautions. She lived in Wiltshire with Henderson until her death from lung cancer in 1949.
Although popular in her time, Young's work has nearly vanished today. In 1980, a four-part series based on her novels – mainly Miss Mole – was shown on BBC television as "Hannah". The feminist publishing house Virago reprinted several of her books in the 1980s, and the Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society has marked her Clifton home with a plaque.
The 'E H Young Prize for Greek Thought' was an annual essay prize awarded in her memory at Bristol Grammar School.
(Wikipedia)
Although almost completely forgotten by recent generations, E. H. Young was a best-selling novelist of her time. She was born the daughter of a shipbroker and attended Gateshead Secondary School (a higher grade school later renamed Gateshead Grammar School) and Penrhos College, Colwyn Bay, Wales. In 1902, at the age of 22, she married Arthur Daniell, a solicitor from Bristol, and moved with him to the upscale neighbourhood of Clifton.
Here, Young developed an interest in classical and modern philosophy. She became a supporter of the suffragette movement, and started publishing novels. She also began a lifelong affair with Ralph Henderson, a schoolteacher and a friend of her husband.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Young went to work, first as a stables groom and then in a munitions factory. Her husband was killed at the Battle of Ypres in 1917. The following year she moved to Sydenham Hill, London to join her lover, now the headmaster of the public school Alleyn's, and his wife in a ménage à trois. Young occupied a separate flat in their house and was addressed as 'Mrs Daniell'; this concealed the unconventional arrangement.
This change seems to have been the catalyst that she needed. Seven major novels followed, all based on Clifton, thinly disguised as 'Upper Radstowe'. The first of these was The Misses Mallett, published originally under the title The Bridge Dividing in 1922. Her 1930 novel Miss Mole won the James Tait Black Award for fiction. In the 1940s, Young also wrote books for children, Caravan Island (1940) and River Holiday (1942).
After Henderson's retirement and the death of his wife, Young moved with him to Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire. They never married. During the Second World War, she worked actively in air raid precautions. She lived in Wiltshire with Henderson until her death from lung cancer in 1949.
Although popular in her time, Young's work has nearly vanished today. In 1980, a four-part series based on her novels – mainly Miss Mole – was shown on BBC television as "Hannah". The feminist publishing house Virago reprinted several of her books in the 1980s, and the Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society has marked her Clifton home with a plaque.
The 'E H Young Prize for Greek Thought' was an annual essay prize awarded in her memory at Bristol Grammar School.
(Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 5, 2022
This is not a comfortable read, but I really liked it all the same. Celia is in her 40's and a somewhat disappointed housewife living in shabby gentility. She doesn't suffer from self pity, she affects and air of vagueness, while having thoughts and dreams of her own and no one else is allowed in to her private world or thoughts. She is rather funny and I really loved reading about her, however she is brutally honest at times and some people may find it hard to warm to her.
A great read.
A great read.
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July 21, 2022This was to be my last novel I had left to read by E. H. Young and I have to do a DNF. It’s over 400 pages and I am a little over 100 pages into it, and it’s not good....at least for me. Celia Marston is married to Gerald Marston, an architect who apparently is basely supporting his family. She secretly hates him. He seems like a decent sort. She is still in love with somebody else, Richard. I have no idea whether they had a romantic relationship in the past...I suppose that would be revealed if I push on with the book, but I don’t have the time or the patience. Very little has actually happened in the book. Celia might take a walk and see ducks in a stream, and E. H. Young has a whole frigging paragraph about what the ducks look like and how they are acting with a bunch of similes throw in for good measure. Fer chrissake, just get from Point A to Point B without telling me what a duck is thinking. A person says something to Celia in a conversation and E. H. Young spends a long paragraph telling us what Celia is really thinking as Celia says something to the other person. There’s’ not enough time in their conversation for all the thoughts that supposedly Celia has in her head to be thought while Celia carries on her conversation. Paragraph after paragraph like this.
I can’t believe this is so similar to ‘Chatterton Square’ in which a curate’s wife hates her husband, but she keeps it inside (until the very end of the novel), as Celia is keeping her aversion towards her husband in this novel. I know women are trapped in terrible marriages, and I think that is the point E.H. Young is making here, but fer chrissake I understood her point clearly in the first 100 pages. And I have 300 more pages to go of this? No can do.
Reviews
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
• https://www.librarything.com/work/780575
Here are the novels that E.H. Young wrote, in the order that they were published, number of pages, and when if read them, my ratings.
• A Corn of Wheat (1910)
• Yonder (1912)
• Moor Fires (1916)
• A Bridge Dividing (1922) (republished as The Misses Mallett), 256 pages, 4 stars
• William (1925), 288 pages, 2.5 stars
• The Vicar's Daughter, (1927), 288 pages, 1 star
• Miss Mole (1930), 288 pages, 5 stars
• Jenny Wren (1932), 352 pages, 3.5 stars
• The Curate's Wife (1934), 336 pages, 2.5 stars
• Celia (1937), 414 pages, DNF
• Chatterton Square (1947), 367 pages, 2 stars
I can’t believe this is so similar to ‘Chatterton Square’ in which a curate’s wife hates her husband, but she keeps it inside (until the very end of the novel), as Celia is keeping her aversion towards her husband in this novel. I know women are trapped in terrible marriages, and I think that is the point E.H. Young is making here, but fer chrissake I understood her point clearly in the first 100 pages. And I have 300 more pages to go of this? No can do.
Reviews
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
• https://www.librarything.com/work/780575
Here are the novels that E.H. Young wrote, in the order that they were published, number of pages, and when if read them, my ratings.
• A Corn of Wheat (1910)
• Yonder (1912)
• Moor Fires (1916)
• A Bridge Dividing (1922) (republished as The Misses Mallett), 256 pages, 4 stars
• William (1925), 288 pages, 2.5 stars
• The Vicar's Daughter, (1927), 288 pages, 1 star
• Miss Mole (1930), 288 pages, 5 stars
• Jenny Wren (1932), 352 pages, 3.5 stars
• The Curate's Wife (1934), 336 pages, 2.5 stars
• Celia (1937), 414 pages, DNF
• Chatterton Square (1947), 367 pages, 2 stars
April 2, 2018
In this novel there were some slight echoes of Chatterton Square – my favourite E H Young novel – in it’s depiction of middle class marriage. This is certainly a recurring theme for E H Young, and in this novel, she shines a keen light on three slightly mis-matched marriages.
“A family isn’t several separate persons. It’s a lot of–of dismembered people. Somebody has your head and another one has your hands and you have bits of all the others fastened onto you. You don’t belong to yourself, but then, they, poor things, don’t belong to themselves either.”
We find ourselves back in the familiar territory of Upper Radstowe between the wars, here forty-five-year-old Celia lives in a flat with her two children and architect husband. She is uninterested in the physical side of their relationship, contemptuous of her husband’s dull little house designs, though she keeps smiling kindly, and never rocks the boat. Tired too, of scrimping and saving for her family – while her brother’s family live so much more comfortably. Her only help is her daily, Miss Riggs, with whom Celia has a somewhat frank relationship. Miss Riggs lost her one love in the war, she talks about Fred as if he were only recently there. Celia often envies Miss Riggs her chaste memories of Fred, never having experienced the realities of married life.
Here we have the minutia of everyday life – the oppressiveness of domesticity, the weariness of years unvaried and unchanging. Celia is a typical E H Young character she wryly observes those around her and gives a good talking to where it’s needed. Though she hides her keen intelligence behind a veil of gentle vagueness. However, there is a frustration too.
“Men, she thought, always had this resource of attributing their failures to women…
‘Must we do everything?’ she asked herself angrily … ‘Bear their children and bring them up, manage the money, do without nearly everything we want and pretend we don’t want anything.’”
Susan; Celia’s niece – accompanies her aunt’s wealthy friend Pauline Carey on a short trip to Paris. Susan arrives home full of everything she did and saw, charmed by Mr Milligan Mrs Carey’s brother. Years earlier – unknown to everyone – Celia had loved Richard Milligan and it is the memory of this lost, long ago love that sustains her now. Susan delights in how like her aunt people say she is, and Celia imagining Richard seeing that likeness can’t help but feel a small pang of jealousy.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
“A family isn’t several separate persons. It’s a lot of–of dismembered people. Somebody has your head and another one has your hands and you have bits of all the others fastened onto you. You don’t belong to yourself, but then, they, poor things, don’t belong to themselves either.”
We find ourselves back in the familiar territory of Upper Radstowe between the wars, here forty-five-year-old Celia lives in a flat with her two children and architect husband. She is uninterested in the physical side of their relationship, contemptuous of her husband’s dull little house designs, though she keeps smiling kindly, and never rocks the boat. Tired too, of scrimping and saving for her family – while her brother’s family live so much more comfortably. Her only help is her daily, Miss Riggs, with whom Celia has a somewhat frank relationship. Miss Riggs lost her one love in the war, she talks about Fred as if he were only recently there. Celia often envies Miss Riggs her chaste memories of Fred, never having experienced the realities of married life.
Here we have the minutia of everyday life – the oppressiveness of domesticity, the weariness of years unvaried and unchanging. Celia is a typical E H Young character she wryly observes those around her and gives a good talking to where it’s needed. Though she hides her keen intelligence behind a veil of gentle vagueness. However, there is a frustration too.
“Men, she thought, always had this resource of attributing their failures to women…
‘Must we do everything?’ she asked herself angrily … ‘Bear their children and bring them up, manage the money, do without nearly everything we want and pretend we don’t want anything.’”
Susan; Celia’s niece – accompanies her aunt’s wealthy friend Pauline Carey on a short trip to Paris. Susan arrives home full of everything she did and saw, charmed by Mr Milligan Mrs Carey’s brother. Years earlier – unknown to everyone – Celia had loved Richard Milligan and it is the memory of this lost, long ago love that sustains her now. Susan delights in how like her aunt people say she is, and Celia imagining Richard seeing that likeness can’t help but feel a small pang of jealousy.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
January 20, 2012
One of the best books I've read in a while! This is a novel without much plot but tons of characterization. It is a novel about marriage and the oppressiveness of domestic responsibilities. The main character, Celia, is witty, observant, and admirable. Her commentary regarding human relationships is spot-on. While reading Young's writing, I find that each sentence trumps the one before and there are layers of meaning in her craftily composed phrases. When reading this novel, one must be forewarned for it explores spousal relationships, parenthood, new love, old love, and lost love with such poignancy that one cannot help reexamining one's own relationships and one's own place in the world. A must read!
I love these passages:
The postman, trudging along the streets & up & down the stairs, was a mere instrument of fate as he dropped his messages of good and evil, heard them thud on the floor & turned away, ignorant of the nature of his gifts, seldom seeing the people to whom he brought them and so, dealing with the most intimate matters, he remained impersonal, little more than a footstep and a knock.
Mid-life crisis:
But she had a feeling that, after years of personal uneventfulness since the War ended, all the middle-aged people who made up the chief part of her world, who had reached the age at which [her daughter] believed that nothing could matter very much, were aware of some yeasty element working in them, as it used to work in the bread made in her mother's kitchen. She could remember the smooth heap of the mixture in a pan set before the fire and how, for some time, it was a mild-looking quiescent lump, and then it slowly rose under a hidden ferment, to be popped into an oven of the right heat and brought out as wholesome food. She was not sure what would have happened to the mixture if it had not been baked. She supposed it would have grown some unpleasant kind of fungus and been wasted, and she thought it might be well for human beings of a certain age to experience some healthy emotional fires.
A family isn't several separate persons. It's a lot of--of dismembered people. Somebody has your head and another one has your hands and you have bits of all the others fastened onto you. You don't belong to yourself, but then, they, poor things, don't belong to themselves either.
I love these passages:
The postman, trudging along the streets & up & down the stairs, was a mere instrument of fate as he dropped his messages of good and evil, heard them thud on the floor & turned away, ignorant of the nature of his gifts, seldom seeing the people to whom he brought them and so, dealing with the most intimate matters, he remained impersonal, little more than a footstep and a knock.
Mid-life crisis:
But she had a feeling that, after years of personal uneventfulness since the War ended, all the middle-aged people who made up the chief part of her world, who had reached the age at which [her daughter] believed that nothing could matter very much, were aware of some yeasty element working in them, as it used to work in the bread made in her mother's kitchen. She could remember the smooth heap of the mixture in a pan set before the fire and how, for some time, it was a mild-looking quiescent lump, and then it slowly rose under a hidden ferment, to be popped into an oven of the right heat and brought out as wholesome food. She was not sure what would have happened to the mixture if it had not been baked. She supposed it would have grown some unpleasant kind of fungus and been wasted, and she thought it might be well for human beings of a certain age to experience some healthy emotional fires.
A family isn't several separate persons. It's a lot of--of dismembered people. Somebody has your head and another one has your hands and you have bits of all the others fastened onto you. You don't belong to yourself, but then, they, poor things, don't belong to themselves either.
February 6, 2017
As I admire E H Young's writing, I decided to try this after the remarkable "Miss Mole." I must say that the other book was much "cleaner," with fewer characters and a discernible plot. Sorry to say, I didn't care much for Celia, who seemed to me to be a rather sour woman with a sharp tongue. But, importantly, she does her duty by her family and more. The very large family had me so overwhelmed that I actually constructed a chart so that I could keep them straight. I am new to E H Young and this is only my second book, but I have a suspicion that her considerable talent lies more in descriptive passages than in dialogue. There were times when one of the characters would say something which obviously the narrator thought of great importance, and I would be left saying, "What? What can that mean?"
I am willing to accept that this might be my fault, but I do not often have this problem.
I am willing to accept that this might be my fault, but I do not often have this problem.
March 28, 2017
Not my favorite E.H. Young. I just didn't connect with Celia and had difficulty keeping all of the family members straight. Probably didn't help that I read it in bits instead of a nice long stretch.
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March 7, 2020My least favorite of EH Young’s novels. It had no plot to speak of and its central characters, especially Celia, seem somewhat uninspired (relative to EH Young’s other creations.).
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews