The Magnificent Marriage

by Barbara Cartland

THE MAGNIFICENT MARRIAGE

Lady Dorinda Burne had always led a retiring life - a disfiguring skin complaint made her feel uncomfortable in company. Buy now she was chaperoning her sister to Singapore where Lettice would marry the fabulously rich, brilliantly clever Maximus Kirby. Dorinda found that she admired him more than any man she had ever met and in his presence always felt at a loss for words. But Dorinda was about to encounter perils far more fearsome than facing Maximus Kirby. Yet, awaiting her too was a magnificent love and a new life more beautiful than any she had ever imagined.

Genres: Romance, Historical Romance, Historical, Fiction, Historical Fiction

181 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published February 1, 1975

About the author

Born in 1901, Barbara Cartland started her writing career in journalism and completed her first book, Jigsaw, when she was just 24. An immediate success, it was the start of her journey to becoming the world’s most famous and most read romantic novelist of all time. Inspiring a whole generation of readers around the globe with her exciting tales of adventure, love and intrigue, she became synonymous with the Romance genre. And she still is to this day, having written over 644 romantic fiction books.
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, plays, music, poetry and several advice books on life, love, health and cookery – totalling an incredible 723 books in all, with over 1 billion in sales.
Awarded the DBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 in honour of her literary, political and social contributions, she was President of the Hertfordshire branch of the Royal College of Midwives as well as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and Deputy President of the St John Ambulance Brigade.
Always a passionate advocate of woman’s health and beauty, she was dubbed ‘the true Queen of Romance’ by Vogue magazine in her lifetime. Her legend continues today through her wonderfully vivid romantic tales, stories that help you escape from the day to day into the dramatic adventures of strong, beautiful women who battle, often against the odds, eventually to find that love conquers all.
Find out more about the incredible life and works of Dame Barbara Cartland at www.barbaracartland.com

Reviews

[Madhulika Liddle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I… had… forgotten… just how dreadful… Barbara Cartland can be.

The never-ending ellipses. The sudden and inexplicable love that doesn’t even bother to first pretend to be lust, but is true love from the first. The strong, harsh, wildly successful hero who must manhandle the heroine until she melts into his arms, returning his bruising kisses before she tears herself away and runs off, sobbing. Because she knows hers is a useless, one-sided love.

Ugh.

The Magnificent Marriage has, as heroine, Dorinda, ugly because of the patches of eczema all over her, including her face—as a result of which she has become a complete recluse, devoted to books and the looking after of her nearly bankrupt family’s many problems. These problems seem to have been solved when an offer is received for Dorinda’s gorgeous young sister, the utterly vacuous Lettice (who has all the brains of a head of lettuce, I may add). The prospective bridegroom is rich as Croesus, a big gun in Singapore, where he, Maximus Kirby, has carried forward Raffles’s legacy.

Things are all set, and Kirby—away in Singapore after his brief trip to England (where he never saw Dorinda) writes, asking for Lettice to come East, with a chaperone, so that they may marry. Only, now Lettice has developed cold feet (she’s remembered, a little late in the day, that she doesn’t ever want to marry) and since they cannot possibly back out—their father is deep in debt and is depending upon a wealthy son-in-law to bail him out—Dorinda is given the task of accompanying Lettice to Singapore and priming her for the wedding.

Lettice got on my nerves, but since she wasn’t the heroine, I guess that didn’t matter. Dorinda’s idiocy in thinking she could swing it when it came to the Lettice-Max wedding was inexplicable: anyone could have seen that just wasn’t going to happen.

As for the backdrop: while I like the idea of using Singapore, Cartland didn’t do a good job of evoking it for me. Her condescending attitude towards the ‘natives’ is irritating, and I got a distinct feeling that she was carried away by the urge to put in everything that would’ve been exotic: Tiger! Viper! Pirates! Parakeets! Chinese art with hidden meanings! (I laughed out loud at the tiger reference, actually: even if a tiger appeared like that out of the blue on the fringes of a plantation, it’s very unlikely that the birds around—which fly up into the air in flocks at a gunshot—would’ve not raised the alarm).

Worst of all, the romance didn’t come through as romance at all. Infatuation, perhaps. Lust, perhaps. Love, no.

Very ho-hum. If you want to read period romance, try Georgette Heyer instead. Or, if you don’t care for humour in your romance novels (Heyer is usually very witty), try Carla Kelly. At least you can be assured of superb writing and a damn good romance.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early middle Barbara Cartland. While not terribly well researched it was a complex enough story to captivate twelve-year-old mw. This was my first historical romance novel, and subsequently I read pretty much Barbara Cartland's entire oeuvre--through 1982--upwards of 400 books, I estimate. None of them really deserve more than two stars, but I spent thousands of hours happily traveling the world with her, so I give this one four stars for my great affection for that pink powder puff of a woman.

Dame Cartland flew planes in her shimmering youth, took vitamins all her adult life, advocated for the Romany in Parliament and never let herself go. You look at her photos and even when she was 98 she was wearing a girdle, was coifed, powdered and bejeweled. She always made an effort. You must appreciate a woman with that much drive.

The lessons I drew from Dame Barbara's books are as follows:

To be attractive to a worthy man a heroine must be:

1. multilingual
2. well-read
3. brave
4. spiritually inclined

Also, and here was a big shocker:

5. a change of location can change one's entire fate (or face as in this book)

Not to mention:

6. good men are attracted to virtue.

O for the foolishness of youth and ignorance. I bought her spiel hook line and sinker, and guess what? Never got married.

[LaFleurBleue · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather good Barbara Cartland.
The heroine proves that she's indeed bright, instead of just been told to be so and not acting in line with that. She's also nice and not as young as usual. She has always been on the shelf and never considered getting married as a result from eczema deeply marring her skin (eyes, face, arms, legs...).
The hero is quite alpha and not as important as Dorinda to the story.
I liked the explanations about the history and development of Singapore, Malaysia and Sarawak in the 19th century. Just enough to want to learn more, without impending on the story told.
What I did not like so much was that Lettice, Dorinda's sister and Maximus's intended, is way more than stupid. To be honest, she could be considered mentally disabled. And that's a bit too much.

[Tanan G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Самый любимый роман у Картлэнд. Великолепная история!

[Sugan · Rating 5 out of 5]

in this plot hero has a plan for his marriage to be very magnificent with letty a girl who is the most beautiful and alluring...in course of time he falls in love with letty's lady companion dorinda...whether his marriage is performed as magnificent as he planned is the story...story is fast paced and interesting....

[BK]

Cartland's best

[Prescilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Barbara Cartland novel.

[Stephanie Chu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the settings, the romance, the girl and boy

[Kimberly Karalius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dorinda has suffered from severe eczema for years, disfiguring her and causing her to hide from view when her family has guests over—including the great Maximilian Kirby, who she fell in love with admiring him afar. He came to England in search of a wife and proposes marriage to young Letty, Dorinda’s sister, who is renowned for her beauty but not for much else ooop. However, Letty’s not an airhead. She struggles to focus on what’s going on around her, hyperfixates on things like birds and dolls, and has breakdowns more frequently than not. And yet, because their father already spent the money Max gave him, they push Letty to follow through and travel to Malaysia to marry Max. Because of Dorinda’s eczema, she poses as Ms. Hyde, Letty’s companion, and travels with her. But by some miracle, the hot, humid weather heals her eczema so she’s clear-skinned by the time the ship lands.

Max is rich, powerful, and demonstrative, showing off to impress Letty who hardly cares what he’s offering her. When Max’s ship is attacked by pirates, Dorinda bravely stays on deck to watch Max and his crew fight off the pirates, while Letty panics and falls deeper into the care of a kind missionary Sister Teresa. The more time Dorinda spends trying to make up for Letty’s disinterest, the more she realizes she has in common with Max. He shows her his special rooms in his house where he meditates and when she tells him her impressions of the paintings he has displayed there (hitting on their emotional truth), he’s shaken by his feelings for her as well. While showing her his rubber fields, a viper bites him and she immediately sucks the poison out of his wound!!!! With some help from one of his teammates, they manage to keep Max alive until his fever breaks and the doctor arrives. When Dorinda returns to the house ahead of Max, she finds letters from Letty and Sister Teresa: they both say that Letty refuses to marry Max and Teresa has decided to take Letty to the missionary where she can be looked after—she’s not able to he anyone’s wife as she is now, and Max needs an equal partner in his relationship to succeed.

This should have been good news for Dorinda, but Max is angry at the news—mainly because Dorinda lied about Letty’s interest in him (which ended up delaying him sorting out his feels for Dorinda) and that she was lying about her identity as Ms. Hyde. In true Cartland fashion, Dorinda runs away, thinking he’ll never love her, and he boards the cargo ship she’d got on before it leaves the harbor (he lifts her into his arms and literally jumps off the boat onto land. A five feet drop and not a broken bone between them). He then quietly and quickly has his own captain marry them, and only in the privacy of their cabin does Dorinda finally get to reveal her past with the eczema and why they hadn’t met back then. To which Max shrugs and is like “yeah I heard eczema can heal just like that.” No concerns. No worries about it coming back. Okay then. Happy ending I guess. She deserved the loud opulent wedding Letty was going to get despite his reasons not doing it—hopefully they end up celebrating publicly.

The setting in Malaysia is…not the greatest. Didn’t age well. But the story itself gets major points from me for featuring a main character who had struggled with eczema AND another character (her sister Letty) who is at the very least neurodivergent, with her struggles acknowledged and addressed in a positive manner.

[CrystalIsReading on StoryGraph · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been rereading a lot of my old high school romance novel collection this year, and The Magnificent Marriage was next on my list. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. I liked Dorinda quite a bit, and enjoyed having a heroine who is intelligent, well-read, and eager to learn, as well as open to new cultures (in a totally colonial way, of course). Letty, however, was a selfish brat, as well as being mentally feeble. Regardless of how spoiled she was, though, I couldn't help being squeamish about her Joe-and-Jessica-Simpson-esque relationship with her father, and the family's desperate attempt to marry her off, despite her obvious unfitness. I also got frustrated at how Dorinda turns into a stuttering fool the minute she realizes she's fallen for Max. Her mad dashes, lack of ability to speak coherently, etc, seemed like significant departures from her normal quiet and unobtrusive, but clever and self-disciplined personality. There had to have been better ways to work out the romantic relationship, surely. So overall I was very disappointed. At least I have one less book I need to keep in my collection.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite novels by BC. I liked the complication of Dorinda’s skin condition in this romance. There was a lot of learning which I love. Learning about Chinese culture, Malaya culture, and the efforts of botanists to learn what crops could be grown in the South Pacific. Lettie (who names their daughter Lettice???) and Sister Theresa were interesting but I do think their was more to their stories. Kirby was an interesting character but we could have used a little more interaction between him and Dorinda. He is an unusual Cartland love interest in that he is not royal but a self made man. Most of his development was through other people talking about him. I read Cartland’s books when I change genres in my reading list. Her fun books clears my palate for my next book.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a ton of Barbara Cartland books when I was a kid. In fact I learned to read with her books. So I was curious to read one as an adult.
Mehh, I forgot how boring BC can be. I remembered that she was a hit or miss author for me. And I had forgotten the way her h’s had a tendency to...speak….like...they...are...out..of..breath.
Maybe I will try another of her books someday.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoy when Barbara's books are set in the East, and though she exoticizes the places sometimes she clearly did love them too. The story was typical for her so the rating is middle of the road.

[Subala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice story to read

[Hasselhh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I must have been in a good mood the first time I read this book, because rereading it I have no idea how it ended up on my wish list.

The plot of the ugly, forgotten sister, who falls in love with her sister's fiance is made for romance novels of this kind, and as in other books by Barbara Cartland we are taken on a journey to a long gone time and place in history (here the British version of 19th century Singapore). All of this works, as - for the most part - does the characters (allowing for what ever diagnosis Letty would have had today)

For me, the book just failed to deliver a decent ending. Being a Barbara Cartland book, there is really only one possible ending, but it does not come across as romantic. Being held strongly in an uncomfortable position and kissed to your lips bleed sounds to me more like an assault. And it is not helped when he admits that he was considering hitting her instead!

[Nadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

2018: This is one of my favorite Cartland's books and I was glad to finally read it in original language. It's interesting how much depends on the good translator work. Sometimes reading translation we are reading different story. Maybe not in the essence but in tone and mood and some small details that sometimes make all the difference in the world.
This, however was not the case and I was glad to find that it felt the same story I liked for so many years now and I can keep safely rereading it w\o being afraid to be disappointed.
This story is about ugly duck that becomes a beautiful dove and then try to fly away from her destiny but happily is unsuccessful in that case.

[Jane]

refreshing to read a chaste book. Good head turn off.