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Marcella, young and with a new-womanly independence, has a yearning to help the poor. When a gamekeeper is murdered near where she lives, Marcella finds herself at odds with her wealthy fiancé over beliefs about property and justice. The discovery leads Marcella to pursue--among other things--a career in nursing. In settings ranging from village cottages, London slums and hospital wards to fashionable drawing rooms and the Ladies' Gallery of the Houses of Parliament, the book combines a gripping story with serious issues--socialism, rural and urban poverty, poaching laws, journalistic ethics, the Woman Question--inspiring critics to liken Marcella to George Eliot's novels. The Broadview Literary Texts edition records the substantive differences between the two major editions published during Ward's lifetime, and included among the many appendices are news accounts of the murder trial and executions that inspired the novel, and previously unpublished letters by Ward. NB: Mary Augusta Ward has traditionally been known as Mrs. Humphry Ward.… (more)
User reviews
Marcella shares many of the conventions of the late-Victorian novel. The lead character is intellectually inclined and socially-minded, but her gender ensures that her attention to socio-political issues will either make her look foolish or lead to her demise. The late-Victorian countryside offers no real place for a politically active woman. Ward also gives the reader a strong sense that the best thing for Marcella would be marriage, though Marcella is generally unable to see this for herself. The single woman's folly is readily apparent.
Ward offers a complicated plot and interesting characterizations. That said, I had to pace myself in reading this rather long novel, as Ward is entirely conventional in her treatment of women like Marcella Boyce, and I find Victorian characterizations of women so pat. Oddly enough, I find that to be especially true of books written by Victorian women. It's clear that authors like Mrs. Humphrey Ward were looking for an outlet for intelligent women, but they were still too limited by Victorian gender conventions to be able to revolutionary change in their literature.