Mathilda

 

tags: classics, gothic, short stories

⭐out of 5

From Goodreads

Mary Shelley’s shocking, tragic, and some say autobiographical tale of incestuous love. Confined to her deathbed, Mathilda narrates the story of her life. It is a tale of sweeping emotion, shameful secrets, and wretched love. Her mother having died in childbirth, Mathilda is raised by her aunt until the age of sixteen, at which point she happily returns home to live with her father. But he turns deeply melancholic when a young suitor begins to visit Mathilda at their London home, and the idyllic life parent and child once shared turns sour. Pushed to confess his all-consuming love for his own daughter, Mathilda’s father bids her farewell before shame drives him to drown himself. Finally, after years of solitude and grief, Mathilda’s hope for happiness is renewed in the form of a gifted young poet named Woodville. But while his genius is transcendent, and he loves Mathilda dearly, the specter of her father still lingers. Though Mary Shelley wrote Mathilda in 1819, directly after the publication of Frankenstein, her father and publisher, William Godwin, refused to print it. Nearly a century and a half later, in 1959, the manuscript was finally published and has become one of Shelley’s best-known works.

OMG! What did I just read? It's horrible, dull, icky, and regardless of the sad story, I never felt it. I know the synopsis says incestuous but the reason I didn't find it worth my time is the narration about the saddest people on earth and their deaths. The short novel is peppered with the word death. Someone counted 59 in all. 

Mathilda's mother died shortly after her birth, the father who was devastated by the loss of his beloved, left her as a baby with an uncaring aunt so Mathilda never experienced love and affection from anyone. Why she grew up with no neighbors of the same age nor cousins is a mystery and could be the time period this story happened. Whatever...

The father came back after 16 years and the aunt died soon after. Father and daughter lived happily together for less than 1 year but he left again for good because he started feeling another kind of love for her. He sees her dead wife in Mathilda and he was not willing to do anything about it so he drowned himself out in the sea.

Mathilda met a young man, a poet (like her own husband Shelley?) who was engaged to be married to a beautiful 20 year old girl. Guess what? The girl Elinor died just before the wedding.

The narrative was told on Mathilda's deathbed. She purposely went to the garden at night, laid down until it rained to catch cold and fever. Of course, she died! At 20 years old. 

I'm not sure what the point of the story is. 

Not recommended.

Short Stories by Ellis Peters

Never Pick Up Hitch-Hikers!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

A hitchhiker is caught in a murderous web.

 His whole life, William Banks has been trying to escape his mother, who wants desperately for him to become a lawyer. Banks wants to paint, and when he gets the opportunity to attend art school in the next county, he jumps at the chance. It’s only forty miles, but it’s a start.

Getting to class, however, will be a deadly proposition. On his way there, Banks is picked up by Alf, a down-on-his-luck crook who has dreamed up a plan involving a fire, a burned body, and a dead hitchhiker. By all rights, Banks shouldn’t live to see morning, but a stroke of luck—and a very helpful village girl—help him escape death without his ever knowing he was in danger. Caught up in a bizarre case of missing identity, Banks must think quickly to save his own life—once he finally realizes someone is trying to kill him.

First Published January 1, 1976

This novelette is more of an adventure with a bit of comedy. It has a little mystery and lots of dead [bad] characters. The women in this short story are more prominent specially the wife of the bank robber. She is formidable both physically and mentally. The setting is 1970s but she wears a 60s bouffant hairstyle, think Amy Winehouse. The wig (hair extensions) adds 4 inches to her height and when she removes it for the night, it sits on the dresser looking like a Pekinese. LOL

60s bouffant hair style

The Assize of the Dying

Aunt Helen

⭐⭐⭐

In The Assize of The Dying, a defendant in an English courtroom is sentenced to death for a terrible slaying he insists he did not commit. Rising to his feet, Louis Stevenson places a medieval curse on the prosecutor, the judge, the jury foreman, and the actual killer—the four men responsible for his fate. Profoundly shaken by the condemned prisoner’s words, a young couple looking on believes Stevenson’s declaration of innocence. And their determination to uncover the truth only intensifies when two more deaths follow in quick succession.

In Aunt Helen, the seemingly civilized residents of a stately English country house keep secrets about love, marriage, adulthood, and desire hidden behind closed doors—until the “perfect murder” threatens to expose them.

First published in 1971 

In The Assize of the Dying, there is a supernatural element, sort of, when the falsely accused hexed the judge, prosecutor, jury foreman, and the killer during the assize that if he dies in jail, all four will also die. He killed himself and all four people he cursed died one by one. There is a contrived romance in the novelette. 

In Aunt Helen, I guessed who the villain is right away. 

Most Loving Mere Folly

First published January 1, 1953 under her real name Edith Pargeter

⭐⭐⭐⭐

A pair of artists is undone by jealousy and despair on the outskirts of London

In a forgotten suburb of London recently leveled by German bombs, an artists’ colony has taken root. Theo Freeland spent the war painting, studiously avoiding danger, while his wife, Suspiria, made pottery during the day and drove ambulances at night. But now the war is over, and Theo spends his time drinking himself into a stupor while Suspiria tolerates him as best she can. She has her work, and that’s enough. After all, she and Theo are promised to each other—till death do they part. Death, as it happens, is right around the corner.

Suspiria’s life changes forever the night her husband is helped home by Dennis Forbes, a strapping young mechanic who can’t take his eyes off the drunkard’s wife. When Theo is later found poisoned, and Suspiria claims Dennis as her own, the village turns on them. But the real tragedy is yet to come.

Suspiria at 36 is 14 years older than Dennis and she is already married. Still, they fall in love a la Vronsky and Anna.. Expect tragic outcome. Poor Karenin, I mean Theo. 

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Ellis Peters, the author of the Brother Cadfael mystery novels set during the medieval period, is the penname of Edith Pargeter. She is my favoritest author and her The Heaven Tree Trilogy sits at Number One on my favorites fiction books list.