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Us: An Old Fashioned Story
A soft rather shaky sort of tap at the door. It does not all at once reach the rather deaf ears of the little old lady and tall still older gentleman who are seated in their usual arm-chairs one with his newspaper by the window the other with her netting by the fire in the exceedingly neat—neat indeed is no word for it—"parlour" of Arbitt Lodge.' (Excerpt from Chapter 1)
142 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1885
About the author
Mrs. Molesworth
442 books22 followersMary Louisa Molesworth, née Stewart was an English writer of children's stories who wrote for children under the name of Mrs. Molesworth. Her first novels, for adult readers, Lover and Husband (1869) to Cicely (1874), appeared under the pseudonym of Ennis Graham. Her name occasionally appears in print as M.L.S. Molesworth.
She was born in Rotterdam, a daughter of Charles Augustus Stewart (1809–1873) who later became a rich merchant in Manchester and his wife Agnes Janet Wilson (1810–1883). Mary had three brothers and two sisters. She was educated in Great Britain and Switzerland: much of her girlhood was spent in Manchester. In 1861 she married Major R. Molesworth, nephew of Viscount Molesworth; they legally separated in 1879.
Mrs. Molesworth is best known as a writer of books for the young, such as Tell Me a Story (1875), Carrots (1876), The Cuckoo Clock (1877), The Tapestry Room (1879), and A Christmas Child (1880). She has been called "the Jane Austen of the nursery," while The Carved Lions (1895) "is probably her masterpiece."
Mary Louisa Molesworth typified late Victorian writing for girls. Aimed at girls too old for fairies and princesses but too young for Austen and the Brontës, books by Molesworth had their share of amusement, but they also had a good deal of moral instruction. The girls reading Molesworth would grow up to be mothers; thus, the books emphasized Victorian notions of duty and self-sacrifice.
Typical of the time, her young child characters often use a lisping style, and words may be misspelt to represent children's speech—"jography" for geography, for instance.
She took an interest in supernatural fiction. In 1888, she published a collection of supernatural tales under the title Four Ghost Stories, and in 1896 a similar collection of six tales under the title Uncanny Stories. In addition to those, her volume Studies and Stories includes a ghost story entitled "Old Gervais" and her Summer Stories for Boys and Girls includes "Not Exactly a Ghost Story."
A new edition of The Cuckoo Clock was published in 1914.
She died in 1921 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
[Wikipedia]
She was born in Rotterdam, a daughter of Charles Augustus Stewart (1809–1873) who later became a rich merchant in Manchester and his wife Agnes Janet Wilson (1810–1883). Mary had three brothers and two sisters. She was educated in Great Britain and Switzerland: much of her girlhood was spent in Manchester. In 1861 she married Major R. Molesworth, nephew of Viscount Molesworth; they legally separated in 1879.
Mrs. Molesworth is best known as a writer of books for the young, such as Tell Me a Story (1875), Carrots (1876), The Cuckoo Clock (1877), The Tapestry Room (1879), and A Christmas Child (1880). She has been called "the Jane Austen of the nursery," while The Carved Lions (1895) "is probably her masterpiece."
Mary Louisa Molesworth typified late Victorian writing for girls. Aimed at girls too old for fairies and princesses but too young for Austen and the Brontës, books by Molesworth had their share of amusement, but they also had a good deal of moral instruction. The girls reading Molesworth would grow up to be mothers; thus, the books emphasized Victorian notions of duty and self-sacrifice.
Typical of the time, her young child characters often use a lisping style, and words may be misspelt to represent children's speech—"jography" for geography, for instance.
She took an interest in supernatural fiction. In 1888, she published a collection of supernatural tales under the title Four Ghost Stories, and in 1896 a similar collection of six tales under the title Uncanny Stories. In addition to those, her volume Studies and Stories includes a ghost story entitled "Old Gervais" and her Summer Stories for Boys and Girls includes "Not Exactly a Ghost Story."
A new edition of The Cuckoo Clock was published in 1914.
She died in 1921 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
[Wikipedia]
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 28, 2019
First published in 1885, 'Us' is a fairly typical piece of children's literature for this age. The good are good, the bad are bad, and the upper classes are full of moral upstanding-ness and the lower classes (particularly gypsies) are the worst. They are prejudices of the time, and though I don't excuse them in the slightest, it's important to recognise that they exists and that they colour this book quite substantially. Having said that however, it's also important to recognise that this is a ferociously well-written book. Honestly, I was surprised by how post-modern it felt at points; Mrs Molesworth engages in asides to the reader, ruminations upon the motives of the characters, and genuinely tells this story in such a fresh and dynamic manner, that it doesn't feel like an 1885 kind of story at all.
The children, however, are tools. Forgive me, but I can't describe them in any other manner. Everybody is besotted with their angelic ways and their fair appearance, but then the kids accidentally break a bowl, don't confess, decide to buy a new one from the gypsies, and then get stolen by said gypsies, and really there's nobody to blame but their own idiocy at this point. Of course there's some social commentary at play here and some pointed moralising about how it's best to confess to your sins otherwise you might be stolen by gypsies and sold to a circus man, but that's all par for the course for the books of this era. They work to maintain the status quo, whether it's right or wrong. (I was particularly amused, for example, that the Noble Gypsy Boy Who Helps Out The Tool Children gets the happy reward of being their servant).
Baby speech aside (forgive me, but if you write about "mouses" and "teef", that will always make you lose brownie points with me), not everybody does this as well as Mrs Molesworth. Us was a real surprise and a solid, solid read.
The children, however, are tools. Forgive me, but I can't describe them in any other manner. Everybody is besotted with their angelic ways and their fair appearance, but then the kids accidentally break a bowl, don't confess, decide to buy a new one from the gypsies, and then get stolen by said gypsies, and really there's nobody to blame but their own idiocy at this point. Of course there's some social commentary at play here and some pointed moralising about how it's best to confess to your sins otherwise you might be stolen by gypsies and sold to a circus man, but that's all par for the course for the books of this era. They work to maintain the status quo, whether it's right or wrong. (I was particularly amused, for example, that the Noble Gypsy Boy Who Helps Out The Tool Children gets the happy reward of being their servant).
Baby speech aside (forgive me, but if you write about "mouses" and "teef", that will always make you lose brownie points with me), not everybody does this as well as Mrs Molesworth. Us was a real surprise and a solid, solid read.
February 23, 2011
Similar in style to most early 1900s children's literature with two angelic children who meet misfortune with stoicism and "godliness" thereby converting the lesser evils and triumphing over the main evil (in this story that takes the form of a gypsy. Lots of stereotypes of the Rom, but at least two of them help the children escape their kidnapping and become "honest citizens."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews