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The Clever Woman of the Family
Charlotte Mary Yonge was one of the most prolific writers of the nineteenth century. Though perhaps best known for her popular children’s books, she also wrote adult novels. Swiftly-plotted and cleanly-wrought, Yonge’s work has again gained critical attention, in part because she writes about the predicament of nineteenth-century women.
The Clever Woman of the Family is a new woman novel that focuses on a group of women in a small seaside community. It is the early 1860s and British women outnumber men to such an extent that not all women can expect to marry. Rachel Curtis, the clever woman of the title, is an opinionated young woman whose yearning for a “mission” in life leads to tragicomic results. The Broadview edition contextualizes the novel’s ambivalent feminism and pro-empire sentiments with materials on some of the most pertinent debates of the time.
The Clever Woman of the Family is a new woman novel that focuses on a group of women in a small seaside community. It is the early 1860s and British women outnumber men to such an extent that not all women can expect to marry. Rachel Curtis, the clever woman of the title, is an opinionated young woman whose yearning for a “mission” in life leads to tragicomic results. The Broadview edition contextualizes the novel’s ambivalent feminism and pro-empire sentiments with materials on some of the most pertinent debates of the time.
601 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1865
11 people are currently reading
280 people want to read
About the author
Charlotte Mary Yonge
713 books73 followersCharlotte Mary Yonge was an English novelist, known for her huge output, now mostly out of print.
She began writing in 1848, and published during her long life about 160 works, chiefly novels. Her first commercial success, The Heir of Redclyffe (1853), provided the funding to enable the schooner Southern Cross to be put into service on behalf of George Selwyn. Similar charitable works were done with the profits from later novels. Yonge was also a founder and editor for forty years of The Monthly Packet, a magazine (founded in 1851) with a varied readership, but targeted at British Anglican girls (in later years it was addressed to a somewhat wider readership).
Among the best known of her works are The Heir of Redclyffe, Heartsease, and The Daisy Chain. A Book of Golden Deeds is a collection of true stories of courage and self-sacrifice. She also wrote Cameos from English History, Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands and Hannah More. Her History of Christian Names was described as "the first serious attempt at tackling the subject" and as the standard work on names in the preface to the first edition of Withycombe's The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 1944.
Her personal example and influence on her god-daughter, Alice Mary Coleridge, played a formative role in Coleridge's zeal for women's education and thus, indirectly, led to the foundation of Abbots Bromley School for Girls.
After her death, her friend, assistant and collaborator, Christabel Coleridge, published the biographical Charlotte Mary Yonge: her Life and Letters (1903).
-Wikipedia
The Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship, a website with lots of information.
See Charlotte's character page for books about her.
She began writing in 1848, and published during her long life about 160 works, chiefly novels. Her first commercial success, The Heir of Redclyffe (1853), provided the funding to enable the schooner Southern Cross to be put into service on behalf of George Selwyn. Similar charitable works were done with the profits from later novels. Yonge was also a founder and editor for forty years of The Monthly Packet, a magazine (founded in 1851) with a varied readership, but targeted at British Anglican girls (in later years it was addressed to a somewhat wider readership).
Among the best known of her works are The Heir of Redclyffe, Heartsease, and The Daisy Chain. A Book of Golden Deeds is a collection of true stories of courage and self-sacrifice. She also wrote Cameos from English History, Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands and Hannah More. Her History of Christian Names was described as "the first serious attempt at tackling the subject" and as the standard work on names in the preface to the first edition of Withycombe's The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 1944.
Her personal example and influence on her god-daughter, Alice Mary Coleridge, played a formative role in Coleridge's zeal for women's education and thus, indirectly, led to the foundation of Abbots Bromley School for Girls.
After her death, her friend, assistant and collaborator, Christabel Coleridge, published the biographical Charlotte Mary Yonge: her Life and Letters (1903).
-Wikipedia
The Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship, a website with lots of information.
See Charlotte's character page for books about her.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
October 18, 2025
Very satisfying! I don’t have the mental capacity at the moment to write the kind of review this deserves, so I’m going to make a list of the things I’d like to explore in a longer review to come:
- The multi-faceted meaning of the novel’s title
- The many many parallels to Jane Austen’s Emma! Don’t you think Emma could also have been titled The Clever Woman of the Family?
- The redemptive arc of the Clever Woman that is controversial for today’s ideas of men and women
- Why there is a love story here that is one of the best I’ve read in Vic Lit
- The multi-faceted meaning of the novel’s title
- The many many parallels to Jane Austen’s Emma! Don’t you think Emma could also have been titled The Clever Woman of the Family?
- The redemptive arc of the Clever Woman that is controversial for today’s ideas of men and women
- Why there is a love story here that is one of the best I’ve read in Vic Lit
November 1, 2016
This is an odd little Victorian novel (not, by any wild stretch of the imagination, my favorite genre).
On one hand it's almost a parody of itself: A mysterious villain from the past shows up in disguise, only to be dramatically revealed 2/3 of the way through. Headstrong women are tamed by the power of God and marriage. A small child dies of feminism-induced diptheria.
But despite all of that, there were aspects of it that I found kind of charming. Rachel Curtis is a fun, abrasive heroine. The novel posits that she's the sort of women who has read far too many books but is profoundly lacking in social and emotional intelligence: as a child, the author reports, she ranted at a little deaf and dumb girl for ages before realizing the girl had no idea what she was saying. She's punished for this, of course, in a rather brutal fashion. But the novel can never quite find it in itself to fully condemn her, and even the characters who found her frustrating were sort of won-over by her charms and furious attempts at self-determination by the end. Though she's "domesticated" by her marriage, her husband is really into her domineering and philosophizing personality.
If nothing else, the book is an interesting hallmark in the history of feminism. The book was written during the Surplus Woman Controversy in England. Because England was so fond of shipping its men out to imperial outposts around the world in the 19th century, there were far more women than men in England itself. Since marriage and children was considered the social destiny of women at this time, this created an obvious problem. What to do about it raised all kinds of interesting questions about women entering the workplace, with exaggerated fears and hopes to be found on both sides. Yonge's novel will likely never be remembered as a feminist text - it's not, not really. But it's a fascinating window into what it was probably like to be a moderate in the mid-19th century. Yonge clearly thought women capable and intelligent, but she also clearly thought they needed a man to keep them from being swindled, confused, and depressed.
On one hand it's almost a parody of itself: A mysterious villain from the past shows up in disguise, only to be dramatically revealed 2/3 of the way through. Headstrong women are tamed by the power of God and marriage. A small child dies of feminism-induced diptheria.
But despite all of that, there were aspects of it that I found kind of charming. Rachel Curtis is a fun, abrasive heroine. The novel posits that she's the sort of women who has read far too many books but is profoundly lacking in social and emotional intelligence: as a child, the author reports, she ranted at a little deaf and dumb girl for ages before realizing the girl had no idea what she was saying. She's punished for this, of course, in a rather brutal fashion. But the novel can never quite find it in itself to fully condemn her, and even the characters who found her frustrating were sort of won-over by her charms and furious attempts at self-determination by the end. Though she's "domesticated" by her marriage, her husband is really into her domineering and philosophizing personality.
If nothing else, the book is an interesting hallmark in the history of feminism. The book was written during the Surplus Woman Controversy in England. Because England was so fond of shipping its men out to imperial outposts around the world in the 19th century, there were far more women than men in England itself. Since marriage and children was considered the social destiny of women at this time, this created an obvious problem. What to do about it raised all kinds of interesting questions about women entering the workplace, with exaggerated fears and hopes to be found on both sides. Yonge's novel will likely never be remembered as a feminist text - it's not, not really. But it's a fascinating window into what it was probably like to be a moderate in the mid-19th century. Yonge clearly thought women capable and intelligent, but she also clearly thought they needed a man to keep them from being swindled, confused, and depressed.
March 4, 2017
Not as absorbing as I found The Heir of Redclyffe and The Daisy Chain but not as grating as I thought it would be, either, given that it's a novel with an explicitly anti-feminist agenda. I knew the bumptious heroine got put through the mill in order to reform her and was kind of wincing in anticipation (I read it anyway because I'm a sucker for these old "How should a woman be?" books no matter what they conclude). Rachel begins the novel by wishing for a larger sphere in which to do good and chafing against the pressure to keep her timid, conventional mother happy by wasting her energies. This is perfectly sympathetic good sense and I felt sad that it was going to be made to look silly. However, while humourless, pompous, self-absorbed Rachel is a stereotype of the kind of woman drawn to feminism which is still in circulation, it's not the things she wants to achieve which are made to look silly but the way in which she goes about them. Also, Yonge likes Rachel much more than I expected her to and argues that her flaws have their root in her good-heartedness. Rachel's failings would actually be taken more seriously now; she is responsible for having a small school opened under charge of a charlatan which, unbeknownst to her, is a cover for abusive sweat-shop conditions. Her actions lead to the death of a child and while she avoids legal consequences she is disgraced in the neighbourhood. At this point a guy whose first significant interaction with her was getting the story of his own heroism herosplained to him by Rachel, who was unaware of his identity and thought dismissively of him as a boy, steps forward and explains that he is impressed by the nobleness of her character and is in love with her and wants to marry her. The neighbourhood is, of course, "her?" Yonge is an idiosyncratic writer who manages to complicate her immensely conventional narratives without making them less conventional.
July 22, 2011
I read this book at least once a year. Sure it's old-fashioned beyond words--no matter how clever a woman is, she needs be guided by a man...and "Jew" is used as a perjorative.
But Rachel is one of my favorite protagonists in all literature. Strong-minded, altruistic, and completely tactless, even her faith in God has been shaken from so much questioning and reading...she is such a Sagittarius.
I identify with her a lot.
I'm sure I'll read this again before the year is out. I have it on my iPad for frequent viewing.
But Rachel is one of my favorite protagonists in all literature. Strong-minded, altruistic, and completely tactless, even her faith in God has been shaken from so much questioning and reading...she is such a Sagittarius.
I identify with her a lot.
I'm sure I'll read this again before the year is out. I have it on my iPad for frequent viewing.
April 4, 2017
So, Yonge is not progressive for her time. The central thesis of this book is that women need the firm intellectual guidance of wise men so that they don't become ridiculous and dangerously foolish. A woman left to mull things over on her own is a time bomb waiting to explode.
But don't let that stop you from reading this fantastic novel. Rachel, the "clever" woman of the family, is constantly making silly blunders and providing comic relief until suddenly she isn't. This is an emotional roller coaster of a read; it begins firmly in the humorous vein (almost Wildean in wit and tone) and then becomes very serious in ways that I didn't expect.
I really don't want to spoil the story, but it's full of romance, mystery, peril and genuine pathos. Also, in spite of Yonge's conservative world view, the novel is pretty feminist in ways she may not have intended--female authors, women lamenting the lack of useful occupation available to them, and women taking decisive/heroic action.
Highly recommended.
But don't let that stop you from reading this fantastic novel. Rachel, the "clever" woman of the family, is constantly making silly blunders and providing comic relief until suddenly she isn't. This is an emotional roller coaster of a read; it begins firmly in the humorous vein (almost Wildean in wit and tone) and then becomes very serious in ways that I didn't expect.
I really don't want to spoil the story, but it's full of romance, mystery, peril and genuine pathos. Also, in spite of Yonge's conservative world view, the novel is pretty feminist in ways she may not have intended--female authors, women lamenting the lack of useful occupation available to them, and women taking decisive/heroic action.
Highly recommended.
March 1, 2008
I am rre-reading this very funny book for my graduate seminar. Charlotte Yonge is an anti-feminist in many ways, but she shows how women effectively run the world from behind the scenes. What I like about this book is its satirical account of a woman magazine editor and activist. It also features a character who seems to get pregnant because she trips while playing croquet!
December 19, 2023
There's a school of feminist critics that would say earlier feminist critics have been hard on many a Victorian Novelist's social conservatism, that we shouldn't harshly judge people like CM Younge for being frothing reactionaries.
For me to take this argument seriously the frothing Anglo-Catholic author would have to write something not so fundamentally stupid.
For me to take this argument seriously the frothing Anglo-Catholic author would have to write something not so fundamentally stupid.
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October 23, 2024this could’ve been an email
November 14, 2019
She certainly knew how to create characters! The main woman, Rachel, is cringingly familiar, as is the guilt-ridden Alison and the shallow but lovable Bessie. And her children, as always, are a delight - the six rampageous boys and the darling, serious little girl with the terrible secret. The plot is a bit more diffuse than in some of her work - there are some parts where she seems to have forgotten the overall picture. And of course, there are the inevitable tragedies - did Victorians really die from falling over as often as she would have us believe? Only read this if you have a lot of time on your hands, though - it is mighty long!
November 22, 2019
A sweet story, but probably not one for our times. The story could be construed as anti-feminist, given that the "clever" woman needed a tragedy and a man to bring her down to earth. Many readers might hold that against Yonge. However, the inclusion of the character Emaline should contradict that message for those who are paying attention. She was certainly a most capable clever woman, who could hold her own and support herself on her own intellectual efforts despite being an invalid. All in all, another good read by Yonge, though not my favorite.
December 28, 2008
A workhorse of a novel from one of the great domestic novelists of the nineteenth century. Not likely to appeal to contemporary readers at all.
October 15, 2025
"No, I am not sorry for having offended him. I don't mind him; but Ailie, how little one knows! All the angry and bitter feelings that I thought burnt out for ever when I lay waiting for death, are stirred up as hotly as they were long ago. The old self is here as strong as ever!"
The Clever Woman of the Family follows Rachel Curtis who wants to make a difference in the world and is not at all interested in marriage. We see her trying her bouts with academic writing, teaching, and establishing a school for the less-fortunate. And we see her fail in humorous ways.
I don't think that Victorian humorous books are for me because I never find them funny. While being very easy to read, I pretty much hated the entire reading experience and did not find any of Rachel's situations remotely funny.
I knew this was very anti-feminist - even for Victorian times! - and I didn't really mind that because I found it very interesting how idiosyncratic Yonge's ideas were. Of course, she would be vaxing on about how women should be steered by the men in the family - and if there were no men, they would go wrong as in the case of Rachel. That being said, this was also a book about educating girls and women and the importance of education, which I was not expecting for an anti-feminist novel. So in that regard, it was a very fascinating text.
However, I still didn't like any of the characters, were interested in the storylines, or found anything funny. So this really just wasn't the book for me. And despite it being very long - and feeling even longer - I don't have a lot to say about the book which I think speaks for itself.
The Clever Woman of the Family follows Rachel Curtis who wants to make a difference in the world and is not at all interested in marriage. We see her trying her bouts with academic writing, teaching, and establishing a school for the less-fortunate. And we see her fail in humorous ways.
I don't think that Victorian humorous books are for me because I never find them funny. While being very easy to read, I pretty much hated the entire reading experience and did not find any of Rachel's situations remotely funny.
I knew this was very anti-feminist - even for Victorian times! - and I didn't really mind that because I found it very interesting how idiosyncratic Yonge's ideas were. Of course, she would be vaxing on about how women should be steered by the men in the family - and if there were no men, they would go wrong as in the case of Rachel. That being said, this was also a book about educating girls and women and the importance of education, which I was not expecting for an anti-feminist novel. So in that regard, it was a very fascinating text.
However, I still didn't like any of the characters, were interested in the storylines, or found anything funny. So this really just wasn't the book for me. And despite it being very long - and feeling even longer - I don't have a lot to say about the book which I think speaks for itself.
January 28, 2025
1300ish pages and 19 hours! There’s just something about Yonge’s storytelling that appeals to me—something in the quest for virtue, where following characters for a long period of time illustrates their flaws, weaknesses, and strengths, but doesn’t always end with the perfect ending. Choices have dire consequences, and God brings good out of all, but still there is a real messiness and sadness to life, but also joy. I will always hate the immense cast of characters that always have the same last name and who knows how they are related until I’ve used my AI-generated list of characters enough to remember. I definitely don’t think that everyone would appreciate this book. It’s more a character story than a plot story, and a study on people and their choices from a Christian perspective.
April 7, 2018
I'm very fond of Alick, and of Rachel, though don't remember when I first read this so that might be nostalgia. Less painfully of it's time than other Yonge books (ie less racism and slightly less blatant sexism), thank goodness, but still very full of omniscient omnipotent men.
March 24, 2023
The first 300 pages of this novel is borderline unbearable with its lack of clarification of character or dialogue, but a shift in the back half to a more love story like approach made the plot slow down to a point where what was happening was actually comprehensible
October 26, 2023
lowkey pissed me off but once you accept the very conservative outlook, it can be rather enjoyable. strangely idiosyncratic at parts because it is didactic and dogmatic but there are some nuanced bits. the love story of the protagonists is really good and keeps this from being completely dull.
May 4, 2019
I found this book incredibly difficult to read--I kept having to go back and re-read and try to understand what was happening.
October 6, 2023
Like many books of its time, it could definitely be shortened. It also was a bit overly moralistic. I did like that characters changed though and the plot was engaging.
May 20, 2025
It was quite a difficult book to read as the language is of it's time but the actual story was okay.
March 19, 2015
Meant to review this when I finally finished (was one of those books I put down every time I found something more interesting to read, which, I realize, doesn't say much for it). Actually, it was a decent story for a lot of reasons and I'm too lame to take the time to write them down. Don't know that I'll go for any more Yonge, but I am glad I finished it. The "clever" woman finds out she's not so clever, and at first I thought it was going to end up making a very old-fashioned and objectionable point about a woman's place, but really, it doesn't. so I was satisfied with it. Of course, super sappy and happy and old-fashioned and good mostly for a look at times gone definitely by (and mostly for the best).
October 21, 2023
My favourite book by Charlotte Yonge. It has a tightly-knitted plot, well drawn characters (especially the heroine and hero) and a good sense of the Devon coastal setting. It's also the author's funniest book.
There are some subtle Victorian clues that one of the characters is pregnant! I missed it on the first reading, but there are hints in 'she had thought it wise, both for herself and her husband' not to enter on the full course of the 'season gaieties', 'her minutely personal confidences about her habits, hopes and fears', 'on your own account ... you should hardly spend a long afternoon away from home' etc.
There are some subtle Victorian clues that one of the characters is pregnant! I missed it on the first reading, but there are hints in 'she had thought it wise, both for herself and her husband' not to enter on the full course of the 'season gaieties', 'her minutely personal confidences about her habits, hopes and fears', 'on your own account ... you should hardly spend a long afternoon away from home' etc.
March 12, 2008
The back of this book calls it "fascinating, is infuriating," and that is about par for the course. Parts of it were highly enjoyable and amusing but in the beginning it is terribly confusing and the last half feels really didactic. All in all, I am glad to have read it, but I never want to read it again. LOL.
December 24, 2014
One of her longer books and so a bit wordy. I do enjoy her recounting of the time period when the British raj held India. This story has a widow returning with her children and their trials in reconnecting with the British way of life. Another character with good intentions is conned into providing funds for a non-existent trade school for girls.
March 5, 2013
Although it takes the novel a while to start going and you can do nothing but get severely annoyed with the protagonist (Rachel), the novel picks up pace later on and you actually start to feel close to the characters. So much so that you hope that each of them gets their happy ending.
July 20, 2014
Wanted to try to make it through 1/3 of this book, as other reviewers said it picked up from there, but just couldn't do it. I didn't like any of the characters, even the clever woman, who was dogmatic and preachy. Anyway, I quit and sent onto something less boring.
March 9, 2008
Read for 19th Cent Brit Lit. Ugh. Rather wretched.
January 5, 2009
This is a complex set of love stories as well as a parable about intellectualism without emotional knowledge.
July 23, 2010
It was really tough getting into, but after the first third of the book, I really enjoyed it.
January 8, 2018
A weak one. Starts off well as Renny's kidnapped on board an airplane but then it turns into a dull adventure that just plods along in an uninspired way.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews