The Three Brides

by Charlotte Mary Yonge

The bed-ridden widow Julia Charnock Poynsett lives at home with her two youngest sons, but soon her three eldest children, who left home to get married, will return with their wives for the very first time. Raymond, an MP and heir to his mother's fortune, has married his second cousin, while Julius is the new rector of the parish. The third son, Miles, has sent his wife Anne back ahead of him while he completes his tour of duty. Living under the same roof as their disabled mother, the sons begin to learn a lot about their new wives.

'The Three Brides' is a family drama full of romance, betrayal, and greed, perfect for fans of the Brontë sisters.

Genres: Classics, Victorian, Fiction

ebook

First published January 1, 1876

About the author

Charlotte 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.

Reviews

[Kate Howe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Charlotte Mary Yonge I loved! A thing about Yonge's books I particularly enjoy is that they usually consist of a large cast of characters that you feel you are doing daily life with. She can feel somewhat didactic at times but I didn't sense that in this book.

You are following the Poynsett family - Mrs. Poynsett and her sons and their wives - Julius and Rosamund - Miles and Ann - Raymond and Cecil. Each of the three wives have quite distinct temperaments and have trouble finding their footing in their relationships with one another.

There is some heartbreak towards the end of the story so you have to be prepared for that.
I also felt that faith was written quite organically into the story and worked quite well.
Bonus points for both seasonal and church calendar awareness in this story.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one, it was quite a bit different than the author's other books. It is basically about a family with five sons who all live with their mother, (sort of well one is a navy captain soo... you get what I mean.)
At the same time the three eldest son's brides come home. Cecil the wife of Raymond the eldest, a member for parliment, comes with her. Anne the wife of Miles the second, who is a navy captain, comes herself as her husband is with his ship.
Rosemund wife of Julius the third, who is the rector of the parish they live in comes with her husband. It is a tricky position for Cecil because she isn't the top woman of the household, it is Raymond's mother who is, and she doesn't like it, and RAymond who is devoted to his mother can't sympathise. Julius has his own problems with Rosemund who loves gaity and of a sort Julius is not pleased with. Anne is very shy and puritany, she is convinced the others, especially Julius, wern't Christians because they had a daily service. (*rolls eyes*) Well all sorts of things ensue, such as fever. (P.S the fourth Frank is in love with a girl his mother doesn't like because of the girl's elder sister.)
Now for the characters:
Mrs. Poynsette the mother: Really I don't like her, I am not sure why, I just have taken a dislike to her. (It is interesting, Charlotte Mary Yonge never makes very good mothers I think. I just don't like them:-))
Raymond: Well, I don't care for him. He is too stoic and slow to take impressions, and then he diesn't love his wife. But at the same time he is conscientiousness, devoted to his mother, polite, and there is nothing really bad about him. There just isn't a lot to him. I felt it was right when he died
Cecil: I didn't like Cecil at all. She was too cold, and how she got involved with Lady Travis (I think that was her name) She was inconsiderate and frankly annoying.
Miles: I liked Miles what their was of him, but there wasn't much so I have nothing much to say about him.
Anne: I didn't really care for Anne. She was too much of a Puritan. Julius not a Christian indeed.
Julius: I liked Julius a lot.
Rosemund: sometimes I liked her, others I didn't. She was at the same time too languid and too sociable.
Frank: I didn't care for him.
Eleanora Vivien: I didn't really like her.
Charlie: not much to say about him.
Herbert: Herbert was my favourite. I was so relieved when the author didn't kill him! She nearly did, but he survived. I was so happy I cried.
So good one.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes Yonge’s writing is confusing—so much depends on knowing conventions of names or social norms—and sometimes Yonge mentions a character once and expects that to be enough. The sheer number of characters can be overwhelming in the first 10-20% of her books. I used AI to give me a family tree which helped me so much!

And, this one isn’t her best novel, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Yonge explores characters over time, and dives into their temperaments and traits and strengths and weaknesses. The most trivial things can be major plot points, which sometimes makes me laugh when I’m eagerly waiting to see how a character is going to handle something I’d normally consider mundane.

I give this 4-stars not for overall story (that might be just 3), but for knowing that the few bits and pieces of gems of virtue and goodness will stick with me, and probably affect me, long after this. I don’t think I’d recommend this particular work of Yonge’s for a non-religious person wanting to get her flavor. Instead I might do “The Heir of Radcliffe” or “The Pillars of the House” or “The Daisy Chain.” Equally religious but maybe better written?

[Mirjam H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een beetje teleurstellend. Misschien wel omdat ik er met andere verwachtingen in ging. Ik ging ervan uit dat ik een inkijkje zou krijgen in het samenleven van drie vrouwen met 3 verschillende karakters maar voor mijn gevoel stonden de drie bruiden meer voor types vrouwen en/of ideeën dan voor individuele persoonlijkheden: Cecil, de verwende aristocratische dame, Rosamond, vrije dochter van een militair en Anne, dochter van een Zuidafrikaanse kolonist. Ik vond in dit boek het didactische element dan ook meer op de voorgrond staan dan in de andere boeken die ik gelezen heb en met momenten vond ik dat een beetje te veel van het goede.
Een groot thema in dit boek is de vrouwenemancipatie en de gedachten die Charlotte Yonge daarover heeft. Inhoudelijk vond ik haar tegenargumenten erg mager.
Het verhaal kwam ook wat traag op gang, de personages vond ik wat vlak en pas halverwege het boek begon ik er wat in te komen.
Toch heb ik dit boek met plezier gelezen. Ik heb weer zoveel geleerd over het christelijke denken in de Victoriaanse tijd. En met bepaalde personages vond ik het heel fijn om mee kennis te maken zoals daar zijn Mrs Poynsett en Herbert.

[Avril · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find reading Yonge very much like slipping into a warm bath. She is so absolutely certain of her values, so clear about rights and wrongs, that even when she herself is absolutely wrong, in her anti-Catholicism, anti-Protestantism, and anti-women’s equality, I find myself forgiving her. Her gift is the warmth she feels for her characters, and her ability to present completely loving families, and for those reasons I’m always happy to spend time with her.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obviously, Victorian tractarian literature isn't amazing, but it's 5 star readability. I do like a nice simple moral - be good, and things will go right for you, be bad and they won't. Charlotte Yonge's strength is in the reality and ordinariness of her people - I felt I could have met any one of these characters. And as for the faithful black labrador....

[Shafira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm on page 54 of 'The Three Brides' by Charlotte Mary Yonge