The Celebrity at Home

By Violet Hunt

This early work by Violet Hunt was originally published in 1904 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Celebrity at Home' is a novel by the author of 'A Hard Woman'. Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862 in Durham, England. Hunt covered several literary forms, including short stories, novels, memoirs, and biographies. Her first published work was her novel 'The Maiden's Progress' (1894) which fell into the New Woman genre and represented her ideals as an active feminist. These political views led to her founding the Women Writer's Suffrage League in 1908. Feminism however, was by no means her only subject matter, with works like 'Tales of the Uneasy' (1911) being a collection of supernatural fiction short stories. Although Hunt produced many works, her reputation is as much for the literary salons she held at her home in Campden Hill as it is for her writing. She would entertain guests such as Rebecca West, Ezra Pound, Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, and other important writers of the time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Press
• Release date: Apr 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473374164

Book preview

The Celebrity at Home

by

VIOLET HUNT

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Violet Hunt

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

Violet Hunt

Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862 in Durham, England. Her father was the artist William Albert Hunt and her mother the translator and novelist Margaret Raine Hunt.

Hunt’s family moved to London in 1865 where she grew up among the Pre-Raphaelites of the ‘Rossetti Circle’. She knew John Ruskin, William Morris, and it is even rumoured that Oscar Wilde asked for her hand in marriage in Dublin in 1879.

Hunt covered several literary forms, including short stories, novels, memoirs, and biographies. Her first published work was her novel The Maiden’s Progress (1894) which fell into the New Woman genre and represented her ideals as an active feminist. These political views led to her founding the Women Writer’s Suffrage League in 1908. Feminism however, was by no means her only subject matter, with works like Tales of the Uneasy (1911) being a collection of supernatural fiction short stories.

Although Hunt produced many works, her reputation is as much for the literary salons she held at her home in Campden Hill as it is for her writing. She would entertain guests such as Rebecca West, Ezra Pound, Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, and other important writers of the time. She also had several famous lovers, including H. G. Wells and Ford Maddox Ford. Ford was married but lived with Hunt at her home, South Lodge between 1910 and 1918 and collaborated with her on several works, including The Desirable Alien (1913). Hunt is said to have been fictionalised by Ford, becoming the scheming Florence Dowell in The Good Soldier (1915) and the shrewish Sylvia Tietjens in the Parade’s End tetralogy.

Hunt died of pneumonia in her home in 1942 and her grave is in the Glades of Remembrance at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, England.

CHAPTER I

THEY say that a child’s childhood is the happiest time of its life!

Mine isn’t.

For it is nice to do as you like even if it isn’t good for you. It is nice to overeat yourself even though it does make you ill afterwards. It is a positive pleasure to go out and do something that catches you a cold, if you want to, and to leave off your winter clothes a month too soon. Children hate feeling stuffy—no grown-up person understands that feeling that makes you wriggle and twist till you get sent to bed. It is nice to go to bed when you are sleepy, and no sooner, not to be despatched any time that grown-up people are tired of you and take the quickest way to get rid of a nuisance. Taken all round, the very nicest thing in the world is your own way and plenty of it, and you never get that properly, it seems to me, until you are too old to enjoy it, or too cross to admit that you do!

I suspect that the word rice-pudding will be written on my heart, as Calais was on Bloody Mary’s, when I am dead.

I have got that blue shade about the eyes that they say early-dying children have, and I may die young. So I am going to write down everything, just as it happens, in my life, because when I grow up, I mean to be an author, like my father before me, and teach in song, or in prose, what I have learned in suffering. Doing this will get me insensibly into the habit of composition. George—my father—we always call him by his Christian name by request—offered to look it over for me, but I do not think that I shall avail myself of his kindness. I want to be quite honest, and set down everything, in malice, as grown-up people do, and then your book is sure to be amusing. I shall say the worst—I mean the truth—about everybody, including myself. That is what makes a book saleable. People don’t like to be put off with short commons in scandal, and chuck the book into the fire at once as I have seen George do, when the writer is too discreet. My book will not be discreet, but crisp, and gossippy. Even Ariadne must not read it, however much of my hair and its leaves she pulls out, for she will claw me in her rage, of course. Grammar and spelling will not be made a specialty of, because what you gain in propriety you lose in originality and verve. I do adore verve!

George’s own style is said to be the perfection of nervousness and vervousness. He is a genius, he admits it. I am proud, but not glad, for it cuts both ways, and it is hardly likely that there will be two following after each other so soon in the same family. Though one never knows? Mozart’s father was a musical man. George says that to be daughter to such a person is a liberal education; it seems about all the education I am likely to get! George teaches me Greek and Latin, when he has time. He won’t touch Ariadne, for she isn’t worth it. He says I am apt. Dear me, one may as well make lessons a pleasure, instead of a scene! Ariadne cried the first time at Perspective, when George, after a long explanation that puzzled her, asked her in that particular, sniffy, dried-up tone teachers put on,—Did she see? And when he asked me, I didn’t see either, but I said I did, to prevent unpleasantness.

I do not know why I am called Tempe. Short for temper, the new cook says, but when I asked George, he laughed, and bid me and the cook beware of obvious derivations. It appears that there is a pretty place somewhere in Greece called the Vale of Tempe, and that I am named after that, surely a mistake. My father calls me a devil—plain devil when he is cross, little devil when he is pleased. I take it as a compliment, for look at my sister Ariadne, she is as good as gold, and what does she get by it? She does not contradict or ask questions or bother anybody, but reads poetry and does her hair different ways all day long. She never says a sharp word—can’t! George says she is bound to get left, like the first Ariadne was. She is long and pale and thin, and white like a snowdrop, except for her reddish hair. The pert hepatica is my favourite flower. It comes straight out of the ground, like me, without any fuss or preparation in the way of leaves and trimmings.

I know that I am not ugly. I know it by the art of deduction. We none of us are, or we should not have been allowed to survive. George would never have condescended to own ugly children. We should have been exposed when we were babies on Primrose Hill, which is, I suppose, the tantamount of Mount Täygetus, as the ancient Greeks did their ugly babies. We aren’t allowed to read Lemprière. I do. What brutes those Greeks were, and did not even know one colour from the other, so George says!

I am right in saying we are all tolerable. The annoying thing is that the new cook, who knows what she is talking about, says that children go in and out so, and even Aunt Gerty says that fancy children never last, and after all this, I feel that the pretty ones can never count on keeping up to their own standard.

I cannot tell you if our looks come from our father, or our mother? George is small, with a very brown skin. He says he descends from the little dark, persistent races that come down from the mountains and take the other savages’ sheep and cows. He has good eyes. They dance and flash. His hair is black, brushed back from his forehead like a Frenchman, and very nice white teeth. He has a mouth like a Jesuit, I have heard Aunt Gerty say. He never sits very still. He is about thirty-seven, but he does not like us chattering about his age.

Mother looks awfully young for hers—thirty-six; and she would look prettier if she didn’t burn her eyes out over the fire making dishes for George, and prick her fingers darning his socks till he doesn’t find out they are darned, or else he wouldn’t wear them again, and spoil her figure stooping, sewing and ironing. George won’t have a sewing machine in the house. Her head is a very good shape, and she does her hair plain over the top to show it. George made her. Sometimes when he isn’t there, she does it as she used before she was married, all waved and floating, more like Aunt Gerty, who is an actress, and dresses her head sunning over with curls like Maud. George has never caught Mother like that, or he would be very angry. He considers that she has the bump of domesticity highly developed (though even when her hair is done plain I never can see it?), and that is why she enjoys being wife, mother, and upper housemaid all in one.

We only keep two out here at Isleworth, though my brother Ben is very useful as handy boy about the place, blacking our boots and browning George’s, and cleaning the windows and stopping them from rattling at nights—a thing that George can’t stand when he is here. When he isn’t we just let them rave, and it is a perfect concert, for this is a very old Georgian house. Mother makes everything, sheets, window-curtains, and our frocks and her own. She makes them all by the same pattern, quite straight like sacks. George likes to see us dressed simply, and of course it saves dressmakers’ bills, or board of women working in the house, who simply eat you out of it in no time. We did have one once to try, and when she wasn’t lapping up cocoa to keep the cold out, she was sucking her thimble to fill up the vacuum. We are dressed strictly utilitarian, and wear our hair short like Ben, and when it gets long mother puts a pudding basin on our heads and snips away all that shows. At last Ariadne cried herself into leave to let hers grow.

The new cook says that if we weren’t dressed so queer, Ariadne and me, we should make some nice friends, but that is just what George doesn’t want. He likes us to be self-contained, and says that there is no one about here that he would care to have us associate with. Our doorstep will never wear down with people coming in, for except Aunt Gerty, and Mr. Aix, the oldest friend of the family, not a soul ever crosses the threshold!

I am forgetting the house-agent’s little girl, round the corner into Corinth Road. She comes here to tea with us sometimes. She is exactly between Ariadne and me in age, so we share her as a friend equally. We got to know her through our cat Robert the Devil choosing to go and stay in Corinth Road once. At the end of a week her people had the bright thought of looking at the name and address on his collar, and sent him back by Jessie, who then made friends with us. George said, when he was told of it, that the Hitchings are so much lower in the social scale than we are, that it perhaps does not matter our seeing a little of each other. She is better dressed than us, in spite of her low social scale. She has got a real osprey in her hat, and a mink stole to wear to church, that is so long it keeps getting its ends in the mud. She doesn’t like our George, though we like hers. George came out of his study once and passed through the dining-room, where Jessie was having tea with us.

"Isn’t he a cure?" said she, with her mouth full of his bread-and-butter.

We told her that our George was no more of a cure than hers, which shut her up; and was quite safe, as neither Ariadne nor I know what a cure is. She isn’t really a bad sort of girl. We teach her poetry, and mythology, and she teaches us dancing and religion. She has a governess all to herself every morning, and goes to church regularly. She once said that her mamma called us poor, neglected children, and pitied us. We hit her for her mother, and there was an end of that. We love each other dearly now, and have promised to be bridesmaids to each other, and godmothers to each other’s children. I am going to have ten.

Ariadne went to her birthday party at Christmas, and did a very silly thing, that Mother advised her not to tell George about. Every one at home agreed that poor Ariadne had been dreadfully rude, but I can’t see it? I adore sincerity. When Mr. Hitchings asked her what she would like out of the bran-pie when it was opened, same as they asked all the other children, Ariadne only said quite modestly, A new papa, please!

Their faces frightened her so, that she tried to improve it away, and explain she meant that she should like an every-day papa, like Mr. Hitchings, not only a Sunday one, like George. I know of course what she meant, a papa that one sees only from Saturdays to Mondays, and not always then, is only half a papa.

Ariadne’s real name is Ariadne Florentina, after one of George’s friends’ books. She has nice hair. It is reddish and yet soft, but it won’t curl by itself, which is a great grief and sorrow to her. But at any rate, her eyelashes are awfully long and dark, and she likes to put the bed-clothes right over her head and listen to her eyelashes scrabbling about on the sheet quite loud. She has big eyes like nursery saucers. The new cook calls them loving eyes. On the whole, Ariadne is pretty, she would think she was even if she wasn’t, so it is a good thing she is. She considers herself wasted, for she is over eighteen now, and she has never been to a party or worn a low neck in her life. We have neither of us ever seen a low neck, but we know what it is from books, and from them also we learn that eighteen is the age when it takes less stuff to cover you. The new cook says that all her young ladies at her last place came out when they were only seventeen. What is outness? I asked George once, and he said it was a device of the Philistines. I then told him that the new cook said that Ariadne would never be married and off his hands unless he gave her her chance like other young ladies, and he said something about a girl called Beatrice who was out and married and dead before she was nine. Her surname was Porter, if I recollect. The new cook said Hout! and that Beatrice Porter was all her eye and just an excuse for selfishness!

Anyhow it is Ariadne’s affair, and she doesn’t seem to care much, except when the new cook fills her head with ideas of revolt. She walks about the green garden reading novels, and waiting for the Prince, for she has a nice nature. I myself should just turn down the collar of my dress, put on a wreath and go out and find a Prince, or know the reason why!

We keep no gardener, only Ben. Ben is short for Benvenuto Cellini, another of George’s friends. He is thirteen, old enough to go to school, only George hasn’t yet been able to make up his mind where to send him. It is a good thing Ben has plenty of work to do, for he is very cross, and talks sometimes of running away to sea, only that he has the North border to dig, or Cat Corner to clear.

That is the corner George calls The Pleasaunce—it is we who call it Cat Corner. Not only dead cats come there, but brickbats and tin kettles with just one little hole in them, and brown-paper parcels that we open with a poker. I hope there will be a dead baby in one some day, to reward us. The trees are so dirty that we don’t like to touch them, and the birds that scurry about in the bushes would be yellow, like canaries, Sarah says, only for the dirt of London. I hardly believe it, I should like to catch one and wash it. In the opposite corner George has built a grotto, and we have to keep it dusted, and he sits there and writes and smokes. The next garden is the garden of a mad-house. The doctor keeps a donkey and a pony. Once a table-knife came flying over the wall to us. George’s nerves were so thoroughly upset that he could not bear anything but Ouida and Miss Braddon read aloud to him all the rest of the day. Mother happens to like those authors and another Italian lady’s books that we are forbidden to mention in this house. She never reads George’s own works; she says she has promised to be a good wife to him, but that that wasn’t in the bond. She knows them too well, having heard them all in the rough. Behind the scenes in a novel is as dull as behind the scenes in a theatre, you never know what the play is about. Aunt Gerty says that all George’s things are rank, and quite undramatic, and George says he is glad to hear it, for he doesn’t like Aunt Gerty.

The other persons in the house are George’s cats. There are three. The grey cat, the only one who has kittens, I call Lady Castlewood, out of Esmond by Thackeray. George sometimes says that little cat of a Lady Castlewood—it occurred to me that that little Lady Castlewood of a cat just suits ours, for she is a jealous beast, a cantankerous beast, and goes Nap with her claws all over your face in no time! She hates her children once they are grown up, and is merely on bowing terms with them, or you might call it licking terms—for she doesn’t mind giving them a wash and a brush-up whenever they come her way. Robert the Devil was the one that stayed away a week. He is very big and mild; he can lie down and wrap himself in his fur till he looks all over alike, and you couldn’t find any particular part of him, no more than if he were a kind of soft hedgehog. George talks to them and tells them things about himself.

I am sure they are welcome to his confidence! that is what the new cook said. She likes them better than she likes him. She is quite kind to cats, though she gives them a hoist with her foot sometimes, when they get in her way. They are valuable, you see. I wish I was, for then people care what you eat and give you medecines, which I love. It isn’t often you are disappointed in a new bottle of medecine, except when there’s gentian in it.

CHAPTER II

YOU don’t get a very good class of servant down this way, my mother says, but then she is so particular. She is the kind of mistress who knows how to do everything better herself, and that kind never gets good servants; it seems to paralyze the poor girls, and make them limp and without an idea in their heads, or what they choose to call their heads, which I strongly suspect is their stomachs. You can punish or reward a servant best through its stomach, and don’t give them beer, or beer-money either! Beer makes them cross or cheeky, depending, I suppose, on the make of the beer. Mother never gives it. They buy it, I know, but I never tell. It would be as much as my place (in the kitchen) is worth, and I value my right of free entry.

Mother is terribly down on dust too. She has a book about germ culture, and sees germs in everything. It doesn’t make her any happier. But as for dusting, so far as I can see, what they call dusting is only a plan for raising the dirt and taking it to some other place. It gets into our mouths in the end. I do pity Matter that is always getting into the wrong place, chivied here and there, with no resting-place for the sole of the foot. For whenever Mother sees dust anywhere, or suspects it, she makes a cross with her finger in it, and the servants are supposed to see the cross and feel ashamed. Though I don’t believe any servant was ever ashamed in her life. ’Tisn’t in their natures. They just grin and bear with it—with the dust, and the scolding too.

It’s ’er little way, I heard Sarah say once, not a bit unkindly or disagreeably, though, after Mother had come down on her about something. But once I caught the very same girl shaking her fist at George’s back and calling him an old beast!

Sarah, I said, whom are you addressing?

The doctor’s donkey, miss, she said, as quick as lightning, pointing to it grazing in the doctor’s garden next door. People were always overloading that donkey, and shaking their fists at it.

I must get to the new cook. The last one gave Mother notice, and I never could find out why, because she was fond of Mother and could stand the cats.

"Oh, I like you, ma’am, I heard her say, just as if she disliked some one else. Mother took no notice, but left the kitchen, and Cook took a currant off her elbow and pulled down her sleeves, and mumbled to Sarah, It isn’t right, and I for one ain’t going to help countenance it. A-visiting his family now and then between jobs, just like a burglar—or some-think worse!"

What is worse than a burglar? I was passing the scullery window, and Sarah had just thrown a lot of boiling water into a basin in front of them both, so that it made a mist and she didn’t see me. I knew, though, she was saying something rude, for when Sarah told her she shouldn’t reely, she muttered something more about a neglected angel! I did think at first she meant me, or perhaps the doctor’s donkey as usual, but then

Reviews for The Celebrity at Home

[dominiquemarie-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Back to the Classics Reading Challenge 2017
Category: Romance Classic

L. M. Montgomery wrote mostly children's books, but this book is geared toward adults. It is a hidden gem; a light read, but one with substance. The plotline of the movie, Last Holiday is very similar to this. Valancy Stirling lives with her mother and cousin, who are highly dysfunctional. Her extended family is just as dysfunctional, and they all live in the same town in Canada during the 1920's. At 30, she has been relegated to the status of "old maid". She is told by the Doctor that she has a year to live, tops. Upon hearing this news, she feels free to live and speak as she wants, which shocks her family. She moves out, and eventually, gets married. I won't give the rest away. The beginning of the book was a bit tedious, but it picks up after that. I actually laughed out loud several times!

[librarycin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Valancy is turning 29 years old and is constantly reminded by her family that she is an old maid. She has always been a good, obedient daughter, but hates pretty much everything about her life with her family. She even wears only clothes her mother approves of and an old-fashioned hairstyle approved by her mother. When she receives some news, she finally stands up to her family and does things that she wants to do, just for herself. I really liked this. I liked Valency, though I hated her awful family. I liked some of the other characters, as Valency gets to know them after her rebellion from her family. It’s frustrating, the lack of options for an unmarried woman during this time (the 1920s). It’s slow-moving, but I really enjoyed it.

[rainpebble_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery; (3 1/2*)Valency is 29, plain, (so her family says), single and leading a miserable life at home with her mother and a second cousin. She hates her life, her house, her room and the way her family makes her every decision for her. Her mother and cousin dictate every detail of her life and all of the members of her extended family criticize her every move. Then on day she is diagnosed with a terminal heart condition and finds out that she has one year to live. Suddenly she doesn't care what anyone else thinks. She refuses to conform, makes shocking choices, and finds a new life for herself, possibly even including love.I enjoyed this book a great deal once I got about a third of the way through. The first part was an effort for me but I was so glad I stuck it out as the book was well worth that small effort.

[bookneurd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery was originally published in 1926 and has been reprinted several different times with many different covers. The covers, for the most part, could be divided into two categories - either the portrait of a solitary young woman or a dreamy image of a castle. The latest, published by Tundra Books in 2019, is neither. Rather, it is more metaphoric: a lone bird flying above its reflection in the water that stretches between two distant pieces of distinctly Canadian land. The new cover was designed by Kelly Hill and illustrated by Elly MacKay, a Canadian artist from Ontario. Instead of painting or drawing alone, MacKay works with paper and light to bring her images to life. She creates the illustrations and backgrounds, cuts them out and sets them up in a light theatre to be photographed with special filters and lighting to create a whimsical 3D effect. In the case of The Blue Castle, the cover reached right off of the paper and lured me in to the book (well, had I not been a lifelong L. M. Montgomery devotee). I suspect I'll be looking for more reprints of Montgomery's books as interpreted by MacKay. The story, if you haven't read it, its is a deftly told story from the perspective of the black sheep of a not-quite-rich-enough family. The main character is Valancy, a 29 year old 'spinster' who is fed up with the restricted, meaningless life she lives trapped beneath her mother's thumb. The story follows her as she finds the motivation to escape and live the life she wants, consequences be damned! As a 30 something, nearly 100 years after the books publication, I found it incredibly relatable; the rules are slightly different, but we are still playing the same games.Tundra's fresh reprint combined with MacKay's beautiful cover art breathe yet more life into L. M. Montgomery's books. The story of the Blue Castle is from simpler time, and provides a welcome escape from the fast moving world we live in now. Like many of her stories, it brings unexpected perspective to the daily grind and what constitutes a meaningful, well lived life.

[air_557 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book, it's quite different from Anne of Green Gables which L.M. Montgomery is most notably known for but it's still excellent in it's own right. Especially if you're looking for something more adult compared to Anne of Green Gables.

[gilbertine_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was so pleased about winning this book in Early Reviewers. The Blue Castle is my favorite stand-alone L.M.Montgomery book (the Emily books are my favorite series).Unlike most of Montgomery's books this is not aimed at young readers - the protagonist is 29 years old. Valancy, known to her family as Doss, is a plain, repressed and disregarded spinster who, in a moment of rebellion born of a stunning diagnosis, takes control of her existence for the first time in her life. The family dinner party where she asserts her liberation and stuns the entire conventional clan is a lovely comic scene.The rest of the book continues her growth, and, most importantly, her relationship with an enimatic hero.The ending is way too coincidental to be even remotely believable yet somehow satisfying in a Cinderella way.

[mickyfine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Valancy Stirling has spent her entire twenty-nine years letting her fear of what her family would do determine her every action. However, when Valancy goes to see the doctor about some chest pain and is informed she has only a year to live, she realizes that she wants to truly live in the time she has left. Suddenly she's saying exactly what she thinks and doing precisely what she wants, which turns her whole world upside down in the best of ways.As one would expect of Montgomery, this is an utterly charming tale of finding yourself, your place in the world, and love all at the same time. I had a fair idea of exactly where the plot was going but it reduced none of the charm and Valancy is a lovely heroine once she gets past the self-pity phase. I did find it fascinating that this is the first of Montgomery's works that isn't set in PEI, although her descriptions of the woods in the Muskoka region of Ontario is just as beautiful as any of her prose about wildlife on the island.

[lcarter11 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

At 29, Valancy takes a chance. And another. Leaving her stifling "life" behind wasn't that hard once she got around to doing it. But when two misunderstandings compound into her returning to it, her new(ish) husband must hurry and rescue her before it's too late.

[elemi_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite L. M. Montgomery books. I am continually inspired by Valancy's courage to live life on her own terms.

[tenlove · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have read many of L. M. Montgomery's books and collections of short stories and this is my all-time favorite!

[charitybradford-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've always loved LM Montgomery and this book is no exception. I don't know how I missed it as a teen, but I loved it. I loved Valency's spunk and devil-may care attitude. It is kind of like that Tim McGraw song, "Live like you were dieing"

[abigailadams26 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you have ever felt that life was drab and gray, have secretly longed to rebel against monotonous conformity and stifling convention, or escaped - if only in spirit - to your own private castle in the air, then you will recognize yourself in Valancy Sterling, the heroine of L.M. Montgomery's classic novel, The Blue Castle.Twenty-nine years old and still a spinster, Valancy leads a cheerless existence, bullied by her emotionally distant mother and whiny Cousin Stickles. Hemmed in on all sides: by the poverty of her immediate family, by the restrictive social conventions governing the "respectable" middle class in early twentieth-century Canada, and by the horrible knowledge that she is unloved, unwanted, and unneeded, Valancy is near to the breaking point when fate steps in.Diagnosed with an incurable and fatal heart illness, this quiet young woman decides to put aside fear, live life on her own terms, and seek - for the short time she has left - for her "Blue Castle." Leaving the confines of her mother's house, Valancy takes a job as housekeeper to Roaring Abel, the town drunk, shocking all of Deerwood by taking care of his dying daughter, Cissy Gay, whose unwed motherhood had made her the town pariah.As Valancy steps out from the shadow cast by her unappreciative family, she slowly grows in confidence and sense of self. Her friendship with Barney Snaith - the disreputable young man who roars through town in his loud Grey Slosson, Lady Jane Grey - blossoms into love, and Valancy reaches for her Blue Castle, determined to be happy for at least one season. But will it be enough...?I have read and reread this novel countless times since first discovering it as an adolescent, and it never fails to draw me into its world. With its beautiful depiction of a young woman discovering love and happiness for the first time, its many lovely passages about the wonders of nature, and its humorous send-up of the social conventions of the day, The Blue Castle is the perfect romance. The hero even loves cats!

[bunwat_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Sorry GR friends who love this book. Intellectually I recognise that some of the writing about the countryside is quite lovely, but in the end it left a bad taste in my mouth. I found it a bit maudlin.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Valancy Stirling has been emotionally abused all her life, she is worn down into a shadow of a human, dependant on others (as many women were at the time), dealing with her wants and needs being neglected, she escapes in the works of John Foster, who writes about nature. She sometimes escapes to an imaginary place that is a blue castle.Her life changes when she hears that she has a deadly heart condition and now she only has a short time to live and she decides that she's not going to live her life as it was, she's going to live her life as she wants. This leads her on an adventure that will change her life forever.I really enjoyed it, found it uplifting and hopeful.

[rainbowdarling · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

For the first part of The Blue Castle, I found myself wanting to slap the main character. For the second, I wondered where the main character had gone and who this strange woman was who had replaced her. I seem to have spent so long during the reading of this novel trying to sort out the likelihood of such a change happening in such a sudden and nearly unexplained fashion that I had no time to really enjoy the story. It was sweet enough, and it was nice seeing a heroine who had (at least eventually, in some fashion) a sense of humor about those who cannot see the humor about themselves, but I would say that this one did not distinguish itself in my affections overly.

[sunnysd_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Being diagnosed with terminal heart problems would tend to be a depressing and horrifying experience for most people, but for Valancy, whose home life has been repressive, restricted and dull, the news actually comes as an almost welcome shock.A sweet, gentle, heartwarming novel set in Canada during the early 1900's. My copy is very battered from multiple re-readings.

[raffles1970 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is a safe haven for me. Valency embodies courage and conviction, in short she has guts in a time when women weren't meant to say 'boo', let alone 'boo' to the people of different social standing. I love to pick this book up at any point, it has seen me through many good and not so good times.

[lossealasse · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Valancy Stirling, finding out that she's going to die in a year, kicks free of her repressive life, tells her irritating relatives a bunch of hilarious and perfectly true things, and marries a man half the town dimly suspects to be an axe murderer. This book is funny, sweet, sappy (occasionally irritatingly so), but on the whole, refreshing and rejuvenating. Definitely a comfort read.

[cullumosity · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is an annual read for me; every Spring since I was 13, I have a craving for it. It has the distinction of being the first Montgomery book I read that was not a part of the Anne series. In this novel, Valency is tired of her family and throws off the chains of tradition to find her own way. The writing is Montgomery at her best; the descriptions of Canadian seasons can be tedious, but when given a chance, they give the book a dimension her others lack.

[rachelellen_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I LOVE THIS BOOK. It's so different from most of Montgomery's other books (not that I don't also love them, some of them even more than this one). It's one of her only two books that were written for adults -- and it's the only one where all of the main characters are adults. In fact I don't think there's a single child in the book, except for the narrator's descriptions of the characters' childhoods. This has been a life-changing book for several people I know; it has one of my favorite female characters in literature, and her interactions with her world are surprising and a joy to observe. The only reason this book doesn't get a 5 is that it contains some rather long-winded nature-description passages; in the story they're quotes from the main character's favorite author, but it's rather obvious (especially on rereads) that they're simply the author, finding an excuse to include Victorian-ish nature descriptions, which were abundant in her earliest books, in a book published in the mid-30's. I skip them. You don't miss any plot points in so doing.

[ang709 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Probably my favorite L.M. Montgomery book. It feels to me like a fairy tale for adults.

[sandyamcpherson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A coming-of-age story that is a bit naive in this day and age but insightful for young adults reaching independence. Charmingly witten although dated.

[saresmoore · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I still love Emily, but the hopelessly romantic, yet stubbornly practical Valancy Stirling is now close in the running for my most favorite L.M. Montgomery protagonist. The "twists" in this are predictable, but I adore the lush description and the sharp observation, the quirky characters, and the small-town charm of Montgomery's books and this was no exception. I enjoyed every bit of this sweet story and read almost perpetually with a smile on my face.

[pgchuis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Valancy leads a miserable life, scorned and bullied by her unloving extended family. On her 29th birthday she secretly visits a doctor about her heart and learns that she has only a year to live. She decides to spend that year doing nothing she doesn't want to, moves out of her home, gets a job and asks Barney Snaith to marry her.The first half of this book was stronger than the second. I very much enjoyed the chapters where Valancy begins to speak her mind to her family, but once she and Barney got married there were chapters of them living blissfully in communion with nature and I started to skim. Things perked up again at the end though.

[bookmystique · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fully as wonderful as Anne of Green Gables. Fun, joyful, serious and ridiculous, in short, satisfying. Great depiction of the absurdities of human nature. Lovely descriptions of natural beauty. Contagious imagination. Thought provoking philosophy. Well written, as is most of L. M. Montgomery's work. In the top ten books making my life richer and happier.

[elizabeth7a7coates · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I keep coming back to this book again and again. I reread it at least once a year. When I'm feeling down and depressed I can pick it up, read it cover to cover, and actually feel happy again. It has that power! This is probably my favourite book of all time. A young woman has lived her entire life her a certain way, catering to the opinions of others. Upon finding out she has a year to live, she decides to change her life. The writing is great, very vivid descriptions etc. It's Canadian which I also like. The main character, Valancy, becomes like a friend to the reader. Read this book!!! I hope you get as much out of it as I did.

[crochetbunnii · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a nice departure for me. The romance was heart-warming without any suggestion of sex. Valancy is 29, homely and her family doesn't expect anything from her except complete submission to their will. When Valancy makes a move for independence by visiting a doctor for her heart troubles, she finds out she will die soon and tosses caution to the wind. Valancy moves out of her mother's home, keeps house for a man and his disgraced daughter and marries the worst man in town, only to have all of her dreams come true. This book is in our young adult section, but Valancy is 29, so I don't know if it belongs there (or if teens would really read it).

[sueincyprus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Valency is 29, and totally submissive to her domineering mother and aunt. Then some rather shocking news changes her entire attitude, and she makes several stands for independence. A charming book for teens and adults with a few surprises along the way. A pleasant read.

[abigailyow · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a lovely and heartwarming read. The romance was clean, and I liked how the story was executed. Recommended.

[kendrarenee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good good good, just like every other book of hers I've ever read. But as much as I loved this one, and as much I identified with Valancy, I think I'm done with her books for awhile.