The Celebrity at Home

by Violet Hunt

This early work by Violet Hunt was originally published in 1904 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Celebrity at Home' is a novel by the author of 'A Hard Woman'. Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862 in Durham, England. Hunt covered several literary forms, including short stories, novels, memoirs, and biographies. Her first published work was her novel 'The Maiden's Progress' (1894) which fell into the New Woman genre and represented her ideals as an active feminist. These political views led to her founding the Women Writer's Suffrage League in 1908. Feminism however, was by no means her only subject matter, with works like 'Tales of the Uneasy' (1911) being a collection of supernatural fiction short stories. Although Hunt produced many works, her reputation is as much for the literary salons she held at her home in Campden Hill as it is for her writing. She would entertain guests such as Rebecca West, Ezra Pound, Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, and other important writers of the time.

326 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1904

About the author

Isobel Violet Hunt was a British author and literary hostess. She was an active feminist. She covered several literary forms, including short stories, novels, memoirs, and biographies.

Reviews

[Gypsi]

This 1904 semi-autobiographical novel is narrated by a 14 year old girl, the daughter of a famous author. In it, she exposes her father, George, in a naive way, not fully understanding all she reports. George, charming but unprincipled, is terrible to his family, and yet Hunt writes it in a manner that one can't help but laugh, even while eagerly anticipating his comeuppance. Tempe, the narrator, is a delight, and the whole absurdity of the family drama amusing.

Hunt writes well, depicting a young teenage girl excellently. I enjoyed the plot, the story-telling, and experiencing Edwardian life. I look forward to reading more of her works.

[Lucy]

I absolutely loved this. I really cannot see why it has been virtually forgotten. It is sharp, funny, touching, and altogether delightful.

[Bettie]

Opening: THEY say that a child’s childhood is the happiest time of its life!

Mine isn’t.

For it is nice to do as you like even if it isn’t good for you. It is nice to overeat yourself even though it does make you ill afterwards. It is a positive pleasure to go out and do something that catches you a cold, if you want to, and to leave off your winter clothes a month too soon. Children hate feeling “stuffy”—no grown-up person understands that feeling that makes you wriggle and twist till you get sent to bed. It is nice to go to bed when you are sleepy, and no sooner, not to be despatched any time that grown-up people are tired of you and take the quickest way to get rid of a nuisance. Taken all round, the very nicest thing in the world is your own way and plenty of it, and you never get that properly, it seems to me, until you are too old to enjoy it, or too cross to admit that you do!

I suspect that the word “rice-pudding” will be written on my heart, as Calais was on Bloody Mary’s, when I am dead.

[Agnes]

She captured the voice of a child really well and there were some witty lines
BUT I sped read through the last half, it was boring, I wanted it over.

"She considers herself wasted, for she is over eighteen now, and she has never been to a party or worn a low neck in her life. We have neither of us ever seen a low neck, but we know what it is from books, and from them also we learn that eighteen is the age when it takes less stuff to cover you."

“Yes, I dominate the lower strata, they dote on any topsy-turvy upper-class gospel I chose at the moment to formulate for their crass benefit. Miss Mander, did you ever envisage Peckham?”
“I lived there and sold matches once,” said she, “and, moreover, I’ve kept a Home for distressed female-authors in the Isle of Dogs.”

"Ariadne and Aunt Gerty haven’t got an ounce of country fibre in them. They get at loggerheads with the country at once. The mildest cows chase them, they manage to nearly drown themselves in the tiniest ditches, the quietest old pony rears if they drive him. If they pick a mushroom it is sure to be a toadstool; if they bite into a pear there’s a wasp inside it; if they take hold of a village baby they are sure to drop it."

"That is the corner George calls The Pleasaunce--it is we who call it Cat Corner. Not only dead cats come there, but brickbats and tin kettles with just one little hole in them, and brown-paper parcels that we open
with a poker. I hope there will be a dead baby in one some day, to reward us."

" I won’t say who the authors of these are, as being a literary man’s daughter it might give
offence, but they are by women mostly. George vetoes women’s books too, for they are generally bad, and if they are good, they have no business to be."

"He seemed bewildered, but able to swear all the time.
“Won’t you pay your cab, George?” said Mother gently, “and then you can abuse me at your leisure!”"

[Patrizia]

L'idea vincente di questa storia è che la narrazione viene affidata alla figlia minore della celebrità di cui si parla, una ragazzina di tredici o quattordici anni. Ne viene fuori un ritratto piuttosto feroce degli epigoni londinesi dei preraffaelliti, un mondo fatto di sedicenti artisti e di mecenati egocentrici, da cui vengono sistematicamente emarginate le personalità più naturali e sincere. Il giusto livello di ironia e umorismo è (inconsapevolmente) garantito dalla voce della testimone, che descrive con vissuto distacco il disfarsi e l'intrecciarsi di storie sentimentali riguardanti, tra l'altro, la propria sorella maggiore.