Under The Southern Cross

by Elizabeth Robins, John Rae (Illustrator)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

Elizabeth Robins (August 6, 1862 – May 8, 1952) was an actress, playwright, novelist, and suffragette.

Robins realised her income from acting was not stable enough to carry her. While Robins was busy being a successful actress, she had to leave England to look for her brother in Alaska, who had gone missing. Her experiences searching for her brother led her to write her novels, Magnetic North (written in 1904) and Come and Find Me (1908). Before this, she had written novels such as George Mandeville’s Husband (1894), The New Moon (1895), Below the Salt and Other Stories (1896) and several others under the name of C. E. Raimond. She explained her use of a pseudonym as a means of keeping her acting and writing careers separate but gave it up when the media reported that Robins and Raimond were the same. She enjoyed a long career as a fiction and nonfiction writer.

In her biography of Elizabeth Robins, Staging a Life, Angela John says, “It is possible to trace in Elizabeth’s writing from 1890s onwards an emerging feminist critique, clearly, but only partly, influenced by the psychological realism of Ibsen, which would find most confident expression in 1907 in her justly celebrated novel The Convert”. Robins’ main character, Vida, speaks to “male politicians and social acquaintances”, something very different from what the women of Robins’ time did – something very reminiscent of one of Ibsen’s ‘new women.’ Adapted from this novel is, Elizabeth Robins’ most famous play, Votes for Women! The first play to bring the “street politics of women’s suffrage to the stage”, Votes for Women! led to a flourish of suffrage drama. Elizabeth Robins first attended “open-air meetings of the suffrage union” when the Women’s Social and Political Union moved its headquarters from Manchester to London in 1906. It was then that she “abandoned” the current play she was writing and worked to complete the very first suffrage drama. “The more Robins became immersed in the work, the more she became converted to the cause”.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Perry Whitford]

A sprightly and passably amusing little story about an American girl who takes a cruise from San Francisco to New York via Central America, where she finds herself beset by a fellow passenger, a passionate Peruvian nobleman.

This Peruvian, the Baron de Bach, has a German father and was educated in France, with these competing influences having an outrageous effect on his pidgin English, e.g. "Señorita's knowledge of French and Jherman ees better zome days dthan odthers. But it ees gude for me that I vill learn spik zo beautiful Eenglish."

Charming one minute, then sensitive to the point of aggression the next when teased, the Baron soon confesses that he is "in loaf" with Blanche, but the spirited girl finds it hard to take his attentions seriously.

Elizabeth Robins was not only an author but a celebrated actress who staged her own performances of Ibsen in the late 19th century; an influential suffragist; and an acquittance to the likes of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw.

Strangely then, considering those heavyweight biographical features, Under the Southern Cross is as insubstantial as a tortilla chip, though fun enough. This piece of dialogue gives you a clue:

"Where is Baron de Bach? I thought he was with you."
"So he was, but he's just gone daft—I mean aft."

I don't think she stole that pun from Wilde.

[Susan Molloy]

This story was written by American actress and author Elizabeth Robins (1862-1952). In this 1907 novelette, Blanche, an American, is on a ship, the “San Miguel,†and is traveling from Frisco to the Big Apple via exotic Central America. She meets a P

[Lanelle]

A very enjoyable story, with a fascinating ending. It's going to have me thinking about it for awhile.