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The Proprietor
The islands lay low and dark in the sea that had claimed the lives of Adela Traherne's parents. Known to the islanders as the Island Child, her life became inextricably linked with Augustus Walmer, the Proprietor, in the summer of 1840 when a group of his friends came to see how he was restoring the economy and well-being of his people and the untamed beauty of the islands he owned. None of the people who came together in that summer was ever to forget what happened then, none of them was ever to break free from the islands grip, and the destinies of Adela and Augustus seemed fated to be forever linked.
- GenresFiction
1 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
About the author
Ann Schlee
13 books13 followersAnn Schlee was born in Connecticut in 1934 and spent parts of her childhood and adolescence in Egypt, Sudan, Khartoum, and Eritrea. She went to boarding school in England and read English at Somerville College, Oxford. In 1957 she married artist Nick Schlee, brought up their four children, and wrote five children’s novels, including The Vandal, which won the 1980 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Rhine Journey, the first of her novels for adults, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1981. Subsequently she combined her writing with teaching, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 3, 2024
Given how good a writer that Ann Schlee is in the two novels I have read by her, the brevity of the Wikipedia page describing her and her works surprises me — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Schlee.
She was on the shortlist for the Booker Prize for her novel, ‘Rhine Journey’ (1981), and she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for ‘The Vandal’ (1979).
I would give this novel a very strong 4 stars. I intend, and look forward, to read more of her works.
Synopsis from inner front sleeve of book jacket:
• Augustus Walmer was born the year before Trafalgar, the second son of a London Banker. Death swept through his family like an epidemic. By the time he purchased the lease of the islands, at the age of 30, he was the sole survivor.
His motives for going to so remote a spot were, in the earnest traditions of those times, to restore the islands’ economy among utilitarian principles and to promote the greatest happiness among the greatest number of people. Of his own happiness he appeared to take little account.
Then, in 1840, he invited a party of friends to witness his improvements and sample the beauty of the place. To entertain one of his guests he sent for a child from the village, Adela Traherne. The attachments formed that summer persisted. None of these people ever became entirely free of the islands...
The central character of the novel, Augustus Walmer, appears to have been driven by the philosophy of Utilitarianism, a philosophy which I have to plead ignorance to.
Augustus appears to be landlord of sorts and could tell people to vacate their premises if he saw fit. He was concerned that the small island that was fairly rocky (and so farming was next to impossible) could only hold so many people and could only support a limited number of people. Therefore, in many cases, children when they reached 18, whether they or their parents like it or not, had to leave their house and go to the mainland (England) to seek their livelihood. Prior to him becoming landlord, some people on the islands supported themselves by seizing goods from shipwrecks off the island and its rocky dangerous coast. Augustus put an end to that
Almost all of the characters held my interest, and I was rooting for good things to happen to an orphan Adela who we met early on in the novel. While reading about what happened to different characters in the novel, I once again pondered how women back in the day had little choice over their lives, little freedom, and limited agency.
Reviews:
• https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n...
Notes:
• Obituary write-up (she died at the age of 89 in November 2023): Ann Schlee, prize-winning novelist who wrote for both children and grown-ups – obituary (yahoo.com)
• McNally Editions re-issue authors who have been forgotten but do not deserve that fate. A case in point is ‘Rhine Journey’ and they are re-issuing it in June of this year [2024]). Another publishing house that I like that resurrects older books, Daunt Books Publishing, is also re-issuing Rhine Journey the following month. So I hope eventually ‘The Proprietor’ gets re-issued.
• Both books are available online for free: https://openlibrary.org/
She was on the shortlist for the Booker Prize for her novel, ‘Rhine Journey’ (1981), and she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for ‘The Vandal’ (1979).
I would give this novel a very strong 4 stars. I intend, and look forward, to read more of her works.
Synopsis from inner front sleeve of book jacket:
• Augustus Walmer was born the year before Trafalgar, the second son of a London Banker. Death swept through his family like an epidemic. By the time he purchased the lease of the islands, at the age of 30, he was the sole survivor.
His motives for going to so remote a spot were, in the earnest traditions of those times, to restore the islands’ economy among utilitarian principles and to promote the greatest happiness among the greatest number of people. Of his own happiness he appeared to take little account.
Then, in 1840, he invited a party of friends to witness his improvements and sample the beauty of the place. To entertain one of his guests he sent for a child from the village, Adela Traherne. The attachments formed that summer persisted. None of these people ever became entirely free of the islands...
The central character of the novel, Augustus Walmer, appears to have been driven by the philosophy of Utilitarianism, a philosophy which I have to plead ignorance to.
Augustus appears to be landlord of sorts and could tell people to vacate their premises if he saw fit. He was concerned that the small island that was fairly rocky (and so farming was next to impossible) could only hold so many people and could only support a limited number of people. Therefore, in many cases, children when they reached 18, whether they or their parents like it or not, had to leave their house and go to the mainland (England) to seek their livelihood. Prior to him becoming landlord, some people on the islands supported themselves by seizing goods from shipwrecks off the island and its rocky dangerous coast. Augustus put an end to that
Almost all of the characters held my interest, and I was rooting for good things to happen to an orphan Adela who we met early on in the novel. While reading about what happened to different characters in the novel, I once again pondered how women back in the day had little choice over their lives, little freedom, and limited agency.
Reviews:
• https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n...
Notes:
• Obituary write-up (she died at the age of 89 in November 2023): Ann Schlee, prize-winning novelist who wrote for both children and grown-ups – obituary (yahoo.com)
• McNally Editions re-issue authors who have been forgotten but do not deserve that fate. A case in point is ‘Rhine Journey’ and they are re-issuing it in June of this year [2024]). Another publishing house that I like that resurrects older books, Daunt Books Publishing, is also re-issuing Rhine Journey the following month. So I hope eventually ‘The Proprietor’ gets re-issued.
• Both books are available online for free: https://openlibrary.org/
February 1, 2011
One of those rare books I can't get through. This one is dull, disjointed, and the characters are not interesting.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews