Angelica

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Excerpt from Angelica

Mrs. Kennedy got up from her knees, wrung out the filthy and dripping cloth in her hands, and looked back with a sigh over the stairs she had just cleaned.

293 pages, Paperback

Published August 24, 2018

About the author

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (1889-1955) was born and brought up in New York and educated at Miss Whitcombe's and other schools for young ladies. In 1913 she married George Holding, a British diplomat. They had two daughters and lived in various South American countries, and then in Bermuda, where her husband was a government official. Elisabeth Sanxay Holding wrote six romantic novels in the 1920s but, after the stock market crash, turned to the more profitable genre of detective novels: from 1929-54 she wrote eighteen, as well as numerous short stories for magazines. In 1949 Raymond Chandler chose her as 'the best character and suspense writer (for consistent but not large production)', picking The Blank Wall (1947) as one of his favourites among her books; it was filmed as The Reckless Moment in 1949 (by Max Ophuls) and as The Deep End (with Tilda Swinton) in 2001. After her husband's retirement the Holdings lived in New York City. Her series character was Lieutenant Levy. Holding also wrote numerous short stories for popular magazines of the day.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free download avaliable at Project Gutenberg

I made the smooth-reading of this book and Project Gutenberg will publish it pretty soon.

Angelica's dearest wish is to better herself. Not to be a factory worker, struggling every day to survive, but to be a lady. Refined, respected, and rich. She jumps at the chance to be a companion to a lady, hoping that she can learn how the other class lives, and how to be like them. Young and naive, her dream seems within her grasp - but can she hold on to it? (Summary by Krista Zaleski)

[Mela · Rating 4 out of 5]

She knew, as all other people know, what lay within herself, how different she was from every one else who had ever lived, how interesting she was, both in her qualities and her experiences, a thing true of every one; and yet how impossible it is to make others see it!

I don't know why but I was reading it (through the big part) expecting a light romance (even though the first sentences should have given me the clue). Consequently, I was confused. But when I understood eventually my error the story gained deeper/true meaning.

Having as yet never lost anything, she didn't value anything.

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding created a few really interesting characters (not easy to like) and put them to trials that showed how human nature can be unfair/nasty.

She had a vague distaste for death, which was just sufficiently stronger than her apathy to preserve her existence.

The storytelling wasn't melodramatic. It was rather in the kind of matter-of-fact but in an engaging way. On the other hand, I couldn't stop thinking that Elisabeth Sanxay Holding wasn't even a bit trying to be 'nice'/favorable to her characters (but again, I see it here as an advantage).

Like all domestic tyrants, he was shamelessly deceived and "managed" by the women of his establishment.

Nonetheless, it was clear that 'Angelica' was one of the first of her novels. And between this one and 'The Blank Wall' (here my review) is a quarter of a century of writing experience - one can see it.

You didn't have to love people or to hate them-you had only to get on with them.