Delia Blanchflower

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, British Literature

404 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Mary Augusta Ward CBE (nee Arnold) was a British novelist who wrote under her married name as Mrs. Humphry Ward. Mary Augusta Arnold was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, into a prominent intellectual family of writers and educationalists. Mary was the daughter of Tom Arnold, a professor of literature, and Julia Sorrell. Her uncle was the poet Matthew Arnold and her grandfather Thomas Arnold, the famous headmaster of Rugby School. Her sister Julia married Leonard Huxley, the son of Thomas Huxley, and their sons were Julian and Aldous Huxley. The Arnolds and the Huxleys were an important influence on British intellectual life.Mary's father Tom Arnold was appointed inspector of schools in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and commenced his role on 15 January 1850. Tom Arnold was received into the Roman Catholic Church on 12 January 1856, which made him so unpopular in his job (and with his wife) that he resigned and left for England with his family in July 1856. Mary Arnold had her fifth birthday the month before they left, and had no further connection with Tasmania. Tom Arnold was ratified as chair of English literature at the contemplated Catholic university, Dublin, after some delay. Mary Augusta Ward died in London, England, and was interred at Aldbury in Hertfordshire, near her beloved country home Stocks.

Reviews

[Nora · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed Mrs. Ward’s 1913 offering, but this anti-suffragette novel was hard to take. The eponymous character is a rich, beautiful, and charismatic young woman whose father has just died. But instead of inheriting her fortune outright, she’s been saddled with a guardian/trustee because her dying father correctly believed that she would devote all her money and all her to life to the cause of woman’s suffrage if she had control. Of course the guardian is a magnificent unmarried middle-aged man who is handsome, noble, etc etc, and sparks fly between him and Delia Blanchflower. Delia is under the sway of an unscrupulous older suffragette. They live together and are devoted to each other. Although it’s explained that the older woman only wants Delia’s money for the cause and doesn’t really care about her, she appears to get jealous of the guardian and basically cuts Delia off. There was a lot of stuff about how their group was blowing up mailboxes, which seemed ridiculous to me, but it turns out that suffragettes really did blow up mailboxes. One woman complains about how her former servant was sick and dying and wrote a letter to her, but it was blown up, so the servant died thinking her mistress didn’t care about her. (I learned from this book that the most important part of noblesse oblige is taking care of your servants when they’re sick.)

There are a number of anti-suffrage women role model characters in the book, and also a woman who believe that women should get the vote, but she doesn’t care if it’s in her lifetime or her daughter’s lifetime or neither, and that it’s wrong for women to do anything except patiently wait for the vote. The stuff that these women say makes absolutely no sense and reminds me of the stuff that people say today that makes absolutely no sense. It’s not about content, it’s about being dignified and an upstanding member of society. People just want everything to be comfy and pleasant. Anyway, there’s a beautiful old historic home that the suffragettes want to blow up (I’m assuming this is based on Lloyd George’s home that really was bombed) and in the end even though Delia and her guardian try to prevent it, the wicked suffragette lady sets it on fire, killing a little disabled girl who has no function in this book other than to be sacrificed—and the suffragette lady dies too. Is this book racist? Of course. Here’s a sample line: “From her face and figure the half savage, or Asiatic note, present in the physiognomy and complexions of her brothers and sisters, was entirely absent.”

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty standard Mrs. Humphrey Ward fare: Sheltered, spoiled, and impulsive girl comes under the influence of a cold, plain, angry, and "unnatural" university-educated suffragist. She largely surrenders her will to that of her mentor, alienates her friends, and breaks her father's heart. But it all works out for the "best": the nasty suffragist dies a "martyr" to the cause and a chastened and no longer radical Delia marries her conservative guardian and lives happily ever after.

[Sobriquet · Rating 5 out of 5]

The reputation of this book as an "anti-suffragist" novel preceded it. I was quite surprised that it does not argue against the vote for women. Ward's objection to the suffragettes was their increasing use of violence.

Cristabel Pankhurst wrote in 1913 ‘If men use explosives and bombs for their own purpose they call it war, and the throwing of a bomb that destroys other people is then described as a glorious and heroic deed. Why should a woman not make use of the same weapons as men. It is not only war we have declared. We are fighting for a revolution!’ The suffragettes are today only remembered as heroic figures chaining themselves to railing or marching with 'Votes for Women' banners, martyrs hunger striking in prison or of Emily Davidson throwing herself in front of the Kings horse at Espom.

We do not remember the suffragette who attacked a young Winston Churchill with a horse whip on the platform of Bristol railway station or mention Selina Martin and Lesley Hall who disguised themselves as orange sellers and, armed with a catapult and missiles, attacked Prime Minster
Asquith’s car in Liverpool. The following year in Battersea, a clerk suffered burns as he attempted to stop a suffragette from throwing a liquid over the papers of a Member of Parliament.

Directed and in some cases orchestrated by the Pankhurst leadership, these attacks were specifically designed to terrorise the government and the general public to change their opinions on women’s suffrage – not by choice, but by threats and acts of violence. Some members of the WSPU were alienated by the escalation of violence, leading to splits and the formation of groups including the Women’s Freedom League in 1907 and the East London Federation of Suffragettes in 1914. The impact of the WSPU’s extremism, much like the impact of political violence today, lost them many supporters.

Ward fictionalises Christabel Pankhurst as Gertrude Marvell in this this book. I think it has it's defects, although Ward is explicit in saying that it is undeniable that women should have the vote, she is very traditional and paternalistic in her views of society in general. She believes that the violant actions of the suffragettes will lead to people being killed and works of art destroyed and that these actions harm the cause they are fighting for.

I had never heard of one of the most dangerous suffragette attacks in Dublin in 1912. Mary Leigh, Gladys Evans, Lizzie Baker and Mabel Capper attempted to set fire to the Theatre Royal during a packed lunchtime matinee attended by Asquith. They left a canister of gunpowder close to the stage and threw petrol and lit matches into the projection booth which contained highly combustible film reels. Earlier in the day, Mary Leigh had hurled a hatchet towards Asquith, which narrowly missed him and instead cut the Irish MP John Redmond on the ear.

In 1914 Mary Richardson slashed the Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery in London. The British Museum had mummy cases smashed, and bombs were discovered in St Paul’s and the Metropolitan Tabernacle, where a postcard was left bearing the words, ‘Put your religion into practice and give the women freedom.’The enormous publicity generated by Richardson's arrest and conviction prompted a rush of similar copy-cat attacks – fourteen more paintings would be slashed and nine women arrested between March and July 1914 . The targets included the National Gallery, where Grace Marcon damaged five paintings, including Giovanni Bellini's The Agony in the Garden and Gentile Bellini's Portrait of a Mathematician; and the John Singer Sargent portrait of Henry James in the Royal Academy, which was attacked with a chopper by Mary Wood. Wood’s stated rationale was that, “I have tried to destroy a valuable picture because I wish to show the public that they have no security for their property nor for their art treasures until women are given political freedom

Doesn't it just remind you of the recent attacks on paintings by climate protesters. I wonder if history will designate those who opposed these actions as anti-environmentalists.

[Laurie Elliot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mrs. Ward's biographer states that, "Ward herself thought that her prominent role in the anti-suffrage movement, culminating in the writing of Delia Blanchflower, had cost her popularity and ‘had a markedly bad effect on the circulation of her books.'"

This is probably true! And yet, it was such a riveting novel that I finished it in a little over 24 hours! The plot would probably have drawn me on in any case, but my interest was definitely heightened by the fact that I listened to it back to back with Mark Knowles nonfiction book "Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds." Knowles book provided me with an historical and philosophical context for this the novel.

The book, when properly understood is not really "anti" per se ... it is reasonable and nuanced. It doesn't tell us what to think so much as ask, What really matters? How can we achieve it?

[Kagama-the Literaturevixen]

Not now