INTRODUCTION FROM
'COLLECTED GHOST STORIES'
'COLLECTED GHOST STORIES'
(Side Real Press 2002)
John Hirschhorn-Smith
SIDE REAL PRESS INTRODUCTION:
The following was first published as the introduction to the short story collection 'Collected Ghost Stories' (Side Real Press 2002) and acts as a short biographical introduction to ther life and work.
The text is reproduced in its entirity.
INTRODUCTION TO 'COLLECTED GHOST STORIES'
Mary Louisa Molesworth (1839-1921) was an immensely popular writer in her day, producing over one hundred books in her lifetime. Known primarily as a writer for children and young adults, she, like her contemporaries Rhoda Broughton and Mary Braddon, also tried her hand at the supernatural genre, ultimately producing eleven tales. The majority of these were collected in two volumes, Four Ghost Stories (1888) and Uncanny Tales (1896), whilst the remaining items were scattered amongst her other fiction. By gathering all of these tales together for the first time, the present volume highlights her important contribution to the genre and re-presents her work in a new context.
Born on 29th May 1839 in Rotterdam to Charles Augustus Stewart (c. 1809-1873) and wife Agnes Janet nee Wilson (1810-1883), she was the second child and eldest daughter in a family of six children. Her bothers and sisters were John Wilson Stewart (1836), Charles (1841), Agnes (1845), William (1846) and Caroline Marion (c.1850). In 1839 Charles Stewart had just embarked on a career as a merchant in Rotterdam, soon to make his fortune as a senior partner in the importation firm of Robert Barbour Bros.
When Mary was aged two, the Stewarts returned to England and settled in Manchester at what is now 92 Rusholme Road. In her first book for children, Tell Me a Story (1875), the narrator gives what is thought by many to be an autobiographical portrait of the author at the age of eight.....”Her home was not in the country: it was in a street in a large and rather smoky town. The house in which she lived was not a very pretty one; but on the whole it was nice and comfortable .....she was nothing particular to look at; she was small for her age, and her face was rather white, and her eyes were pretty much the same as other people's eyes. Her hair was dark brown, but it was not even curly. It was quite straight-down hair, and it was cut short, not quite so short as little boys' hair is cut nowadays, but not very much longer.”
She was educated at home by her mother (who was herself well educated and spoke French) and later also attended classes given by the Reverend William Gaskell (husband of Mrs. Gaskell, authoress of Cranford). In an article ‘Story Writing’ (from The Monthly Packet, 1894), she stated: “I cannot in the very least remember learning to read nor can I recall a time when reading stories was not my greatest delight... this was by no means the case with writing. It was wretchedness and misery to me.”
An imaginative child, she created ‘companions’ in the form of cotton reels and shells, who joined her dolls to make ‘families’ for which she would create adventures “...the shells especially, [allowed] such an unlimited scope for the imagination . . . I have sobbed for hours at the loss or breakage of some special favourite, a primadonna of my baby dreams.” (Also from ‘Story Writing’).
At about the age of sixteen she began to submit “trifling things to magazines...just for the pleasure of their appearance” (Mrs. Molesworth, ‘Story-reading and Story-writing’, in Chambers Journal, November 1898). Apart from knowing that the first ‘thing’ was a translation, probably from French, no records of these early works survive.
In 1858 (aged 18 or 19) she became engaged to Captain Richard Molesworth but did not marry him until 1861, as he was pursuing his military career in the Regiment of the Foot and serving in the Crimea and India. It appears as if the marriage was a love match, although Mary’s mother had some misgivings due to his very violent temper. During the Crimea campaign Captain Molesworth had been badly wounded by shrapnel to the head (which could not be fully removed) and many within the family thought that this was a major part of the problem.
After their marriage, Mary joined her husband’s regiment at various British and Irish locations before he retired in 1864. After several moves over the next few years, they finally settled in Tabley Grange - a roomy old house with thick walls and deep set windows that gave a pleasant feeling of space. Their home was six miles from the Stewart’s, on the outskirts of Manchester. By now the family was extended by two daughters: Violet Grace (1862) and Mary Cicely Caroline (1863), followed by Juliet in 1866 and Olive in 1867.
However, tragedy struck in 1869 when, in April, Violet (the eldest) died of scarlet fever. This was then compounded in November by the death of her first son, Richard Walter, at 13 weeks old. These events left a profound mark on Mary that was still noticed by friends and relatives years later and, it seems, led her to begin writing seriously.
Although now she is mostly remembered for her children’s books, her first four publications were ‘triple-decker’ novels for the adult market and were produced between 1870 and 1874 under the pen name ‘Ennis Graham’ (in deference to her father who thought it unladylike to write).
There are obvious elements of catharsis in these early works, for example 'Lover & Husband' (her first novel, 1870) and 'Not Without Thorns' (her third, 1873) both contain lengthy scenes relating to the deaths of young children. Some commentators also note that all four novels concern in some way the incompatibility of the heroes’ and heroines’ characters, and interpret this as in some way mirroring the domestic life of the Molesworths, which appears to have become increasingly strained.
A year after the death of her two children, the Molesworths moved again from Tabley Grange to ‘Westfield’, which Charles Stewart - now a very rich man - had built for them. It was here that her last two children, Richard Bevil (1870) and Lionel Charles (1873) were born, but with Charles Stewart’s sudden death late in 1873, the family (with widow Stewart in tow) moved north to Edinburgh.
It was here, at the suggestion of Sir Noel Paton “a friend with a clearer instinct than I had myself as to what I could do best,” (again, ‘Story Writing’, 1894) that she began to write children’s stories. The first was Tell Me a Story (1875, illustrated by Walter Crane), an almost literal narrative of her own children which also drew on the death of Violet. This was followed by Carrots - Just a Little Boy (1876) and both were instant successes. Like her earlier novels, the first three children’s books were credited to ‘Ennis Graham’, but - beginning with 'Grandmother Dear' (1878) and 'The Tapestry Room' (1879)-all her later books were credited to ‘Mrs. Molesworth’; her first names or initials were always omitted.
Both were written in what subsequently became an almost standard format for Mrs. Molesworth, the ‘story within a story‘ style, as if to be read aloud and often drawn from her own amazingly retentive memory. One can also detect the influence of her grandmother, who was a great orator of tales whom she had visited regularly in her youth. “I can see her now, sitting in her favourite window, looking out on the lawn of a very old country house....while she told us ‘The Fair One with the Golden Locks’ or ‘The Brown Bull o’ Norrowa’ [the latter was recycled in The Tapestry Room] and sometimes stories of herself or her own children when they were young”. (From Mrs. Molesworth’s article ‘How I Write My Children’s Stories’ in 'Little Folks' magazine. July 1894).
Her relationship with her husband continued to deteriorate due to his ‘increasingly eccentric’ manner and in 1879 the couple legally separated. By this time the family had relocated again, this time to Caen in northern France, where they remained until 1884. She then returned to live in London, partly to ensure that her son Bevil could go to public school.
Her popularity was growing, so much so that in 1888, with over two dozen children’s books under her belt, Algernon Swinburne wrote (on the ability of authors to portray children) ”...since the death of George Eliot, there is none left whose touch is so exquisite and masterly, whose love is so thoroughly according to knowledge, whose bright and sweet invention is so fruitful, so truthful and delightful as Mrs. Molesworth’s”. (The Nineteenth Century Review, 1888.)
From this period on she produced a huge quantity of fiction, ceasing in 1911 with the publication of her hundredth title, 'Fairies Afield'. She thereupon lived quietly at her flat in Chelsea, maintaining a salon whose visitors included Walter Pater, Edwin Arnold and Rudyard Kipling. She died from heart failure on the 20th of July 1921, having outlived her husband by some twenty-one years.
She is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
As might be imagined with such an output, the quality of these books varied considerably and overall declined over time. Although she moved from writing books for smaller children to those for young adults, they remained fairly formulaic and with typically moralistic style, thus resulting in them being seldom read today. However, it is less understandable why the ghost stories have suffered the same fate.
Of these, only ‘Unexplained’ has had any theory for its conception put forward. In Roger Lancelyn Green’s biography, 'Mrs. Molesworth' (The Bodley Head, 1961), he suggests that it may have been based on a real event. However, the evidence to justify this claim is extremely tenuous. The story is set during 1879 in Thuringen, Germany (a place she had travelled through) and two of the characters, Nora and Reggie, agree in age and description with her children Olive and Bevil.
'Four Ghost Stories' was published by Macmillan in 1888 and Uncanny Tales by Hutchinson in 1896. The latter’s original cover design (believed to be by William B. MacDougall, best known for his illustrations for Margaret Armour’s anthology, 'The Eerie Book', 1898) is recreated for this volume and the title page (by Fred Hyland) is also reproduced, in slightly modified form, herein. An edition of Uncanny Tales was published in the U.S. by Longmans, Green & Co. in the same year as the British edition, with a variant binding design.
For information regarding prior publication of these tales in Victorian magazines I am indebted to both Richard Dalby and Michael J. Flowers, the latter not only located the illustration to ‘Old Gervais’, but also kindly allowed me bibliographic information from his hitherto unpublished supernatural research in this area.
All the tales in 'Four Ghost Stories' were published in magazines prior to their appearance in book form.
‘Lady Farquhar’s Old Lady’ (Tinsleys Magazine, December 1873),
‘The Story Of The Rippling Train’ (Longmans Magazine, October 1877),
‘Unexplained’ (Macmillans Magazine, May and June 1885), and,
‘Witnessed By Two’, (English Illustrated Magazine, January 1886).
From 'Uncanny Tales' only one has been traced:
‘The Man With The Cough’ (Longmans Magazine, March 1884),
‘Not Exactly a Ghost Story’ appears in 'Summer Stories for Boys and Girls' (Macmillan, 1882) while ‘Old Gervais’ is taken from Mrs Molesworth‘s book 'Studies and Stories' (A. D. Innes & Co., 1893). It was previously published in Sunday Magazine, June 1892.
‘A Strange Messenger’ appears in Mrs. Molesworth’s collection 'The Wrong Envelope and Other Stories' (Macmillan, 1906). The latter also contained the only known ghost story by her son Bevil (1870-1898), ‘A Ghost Of The Pampas’, which is included for the sake of completeness. It was previously published in The Newberry House Magazine in April 1893.
Born on 29th May 1839 in Rotterdam to Charles Augustus Stewart (c. 1809-1873) and wife Agnes Janet nee Wilson (1810-1883), she was the second child and eldest daughter in a family of six children. Her bothers and sisters were John Wilson Stewart (1836), Charles (1841), Agnes (1845), William (1846) and Caroline Marion (c.1850). In 1839 Charles Stewart had just embarked on a career as a merchant in Rotterdam, soon to make his fortune as a senior partner in the importation firm of Robert Barbour Bros.
When Mary was aged two, the Stewarts returned to England and settled in Manchester at what is now 92 Rusholme Road. In her first book for children, Tell Me a Story (1875), the narrator gives what is thought by many to be an autobiographical portrait of the author at the age of eight.....”Her home was not in the country: it was in a street in a large and rather smoky town. The house in which she lived was not a very pretty one; but on the whole it was nice and comfortable .....she was nothing particular to look at; she was small for her age, and her face was rather white, and her eyes were pretty much the same as other people's eyes. Her hair was dark brown, but it was not even curly. It was quite straight-down hair, and it was cut short, not quite so short as little boys' hair is cut nowadays, but not very much longer.”
She was educated at home by her mother (who was herself well educated and spoke French) and later also attended classes given by the Reverend William Gaskell (husband of Mrs. Gaskell, authoress of Cranford). In an article ‘Story Writing’ (from The Monthly Packet, 1894), she stated: “I cannot in the very least remember learning to read nor can I recall a time when reading stories was not my greatest delight... this was by no means the case with writing. It was wretchedness and misery to me.”
An imaginative child, she created ‘companions’ in the form of cotton reels and shells, who joined her dolls to make ‘families’ for which she would create adventures “...the shells especially, [allowed] such an unlimited scope for the imagination . . . I have sobbed for hours at the loss or breakage of some special favourite, a primadonna of my baby dreams.” (Also from ‘Story Writing’).
At about the age of sixteen she began to submit “trifling things to magazines...just for the pleasure of their appearance” (Mrs. Molesworth, ‘Story-reading and Story-writing’, in Chambers Journal, November 1898). Apart from knowing that the first ‘thing’ was a translation, probably from French, no records of these early works survive.
In 1858 (aged 18 or 19) she became engaged to Captain Richard Molesworth but did not marry him until 1861, as he was pursuing his military career in the Regiment of the Foot and serving in the Crimea and India. It appears as if the marriage was a love match, although Mary’s mother had some misgivings due to his very violent temper. During the Crimea campaign Captain Molesworth had been badly wounded by shrapnel to the head (which could not be fully removed) and many within the family thought that this was a major part of the problem.
After their marriage, Mary joined her husband’s regiment at various British and Irish locations before he retired in 1864. After several moves over the next few years, they finally settled in Tabley Grange - a roomy old house with thick walls and deep set windows that gave a pleasant feeling of space. Their home was six miles from the Stewart’s, on the outskirts of Manchester. By now the family was extended by two daughters: Violet Grace (1862) and Mary Cicely Caroline (1863), followed by Juliet in 1866 and Olive in 1867.
However, tragedy struck in 1869 when, in April, Violet (the eldest) died of scarlet fever. This was then compounded in November by the death of her first son, Richard Walter, at 13 weeks old. These events left a profound mark on Mary that was still noticed by friends and relatives years later and, it seems, led her to begin writing seriously.
Although now she is mostly remembered for her children’s books, her first four publications were ‘triple-decker’ novels for the adult market and were produced between 1870 and 1874 under the pen name ‘Ennis Graham’ (in deference to her father who thought it unladylike to write).
There are obvious elements of catharsis in these early works, for example 'Lover & Husband' (her first novel, 1870) and 'Not Without Thorns' (her third, 1873) both contain lengthy scenes relating to the deaths of young children. Some commentators also note that all four novels concern in some way the incompatibility of the heroes’ and heroines’ characters, and interpret this as in some way mirroring the domestic life of the Molesworths, which appears to have become increasingly strained.
A year after the death of her two children, the Molesworths moved again from Tabley Grange to ‘Westfield’, which Charles Stewart - now a very rich man - had built for them. It was here that her last two children, Richard Bevil (1870) and Lionel Charles (1873) were born, but with Charles Stewart’s sudden death late in 1873, the family (with widow Stewart in tow) moved north to Edinburgh.
It was here, at the suggestion of Sir Noel Paton “a friend with a clearer instinct than I had myself as to what I could do best,” (again, ‘Story Writing’, 1894) that she began to write children’s stories. The first was Tell Me a Story (1875, illustrated by Walter Crane), an almost literal narrative of her own children which also drew on the death of Violet. This was followed by Carrots - Just a Little Boy (1876) and both were instant successes. Like her earlier novels, the first three children’s books were credited to ‘Ennis Graham’, but - beginning with 'Grandmother Dear' (1878) and 'The Tapestry Room' (1879)-all her later books were credited to ‘Mrs. Molesworth’; her first names or initials were always omitted.
Both were written in what subsequently became an almost standard format for Mrs. Molesworth, the ‘story within a story‘ style, as if to be read aloud and often drawn from her own amazingly retentive memory. One can also detect the influence of her grandmother, who was a great orator of tales whom she had visited regularly in her youth. “I can see her now, sitting in her favourite window, looking out on the lawn of a very old country house....while she told us ‘The Fair One with the Golden Locks’ or ‘The Brown Bull o’ Norrowa’ [the latter was recycled in The Tapestry Room] and sometimes stories of herself or her own children when they were young”. (From Mrs. Molesworth’s article ‘How I Write My Children’s Stories’ in 'Little Folks' magazine. July 1894).
Her relationship with her husband continued to deteriorate due to his ‘increasingly eccentric’ manner and in 1879 the couple legally separated. By this time the family had relocated again, this time to Caen in northern France, where they remained until 1884. She then returned to live in London, partly to ensure that her son Bevil could go to public school.
Her popularity was growing, so much so that in 1888, with over two dozen children’s books under her belt, Algernon Swinburne wrote (on the ability of authors to portray children) ”...since the death of George Eliot, there is none left whose touch is so exquisite and masterly, whose love is so thoroughly according to knowledge, whose bright and sweet invention is so fruitful, so truthful and delightful as Mrs. Molesworth’s”. (The Nineteenth Century Review, 1888.)
From this period on she produced a huge quantity of fiction, ceasing in 1911 with the publication of her hundredth title, 'Fairies Afield'. She thereupon lived quietly at her flat in Chelsea, maintaining a salon whose visitors included Walter Pater, Edwin Arnold and Rudyard Kipling. She died from heart failure on the 20th of July 1921, having outlived her husband by some twenty-one years.
She is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
As might be imagined with such an output, the quality of these books varied considerably and overall declined over time. Although she moved from writing books for smaller children to those for young adults, they remained fairly formulaic and with typically moralistic style, thus resulting in them being seldom read today. However, it is less understandable why the ghost stories have suffered the same fate.
Of these, only ‘Unexplained’ has had any theory for its conception put forward. In Roger Lancelyn Green’s biography, 'Mrs. Molesworth' (The Bodley Head, 1961), he suggests that it may have been based on a real event. However, the evidence to justify this claim is extremely tenuous. The story is set during 1879 in Thuringen, Germany (a place she had travelled through) and two of the characters, Nora and Reggie, agree in age and description with her children Olive and Bevil.
'Four Ghost Stories' was published by Macmillan in 1888 and Uncanny Tales by Hutchinson in 1896. The latter’s original cover design (believed to be by William B. MacDougall, best known for his illustrations for Margaret Armour’s anthology, 'The Eerie Book', 1898) is recreated for this volume and the title page (by Fred Hyland) is also reproduced, in slightly modified form, herein. An edition of Uncanny Tales was published in the U.S. by Longmans, Green & Co. in the same year as the British edition, with a variant binding design.
Uncanny Tales- U.S. by Longmans, Green & Co. 1896
with the variant decorative binding.
For information regarding prior publication of these tales in Victorian magazines I am indebted to both Richard Dalby and Michael J. Flowers, the latter not only located the illustration to ‘Old Gervais’, but also kindly allowed me bibliographic information from his hitherto unpublished supernatural research in this area.
All the tales in 'Four Ghost Stories' were published in magazines prior to their appearance in book form.
‘Lady Farquhar’s Old Lady’ (Tinsleys Magazine, December 1873),
‘The Story Of The Rippling Train’ (Longmans Magazine, October 1877),
‘Unexplained’ (Macmillans Magazine, May and June 1885), and,
‘Witnessed By Two’, (English Illustrated Magazine, January 1886).
From 'Uncanny Tales' only one has been traced:
‘The Man With The Cough’ (Longmans Magazine, March 1884),
‘Not Exactly a Ghost Story’ appears in 'Summer Stories for Boys and Girls' (Macmillan, 1882) while ‘Old Gervais’ is taken from Mrs Molesworth‘s book 'Studies and Stories' (A. D. Innes & Co., 1893). It was previously published in Sunday Magazine, June 1892.
‘A Strange Messenger’ appears in Mrs. Molesworth’s collection 'The Wrong Envelope and Other Stories' (Macmillan, 1906). The latter also contained the only known ghost story by her son Bevil (1870-1898), ‘A Ghost Of The Pampas’, which is included for the sake of completeness. It was previously published in The Newberry House Magazine in April 1893.
Although it is by no means certain that all her tales had prior magazine appearances, there remains the intriguing possibility that there are still a few uncollected tales to be found. However, with the original collections now scarce and Mrs. Molesworth’s supernatural tales still remaining relatively unknown to contemporary readers (in comparison to her well known and often reprinted children’s books), it is hoped that this volume will confirm her place as one of the best supernatural writers of a period which produced so many of such high calibre.
Readers of Neil Wilson’s 'Shadows In The Attic - A Guide to British Supernatural Fiction, 1820-1950' (The British Library, 2000), will perhaps wonder why the tales ‘--------- Will Not Take Place’, ‘The Clock That Struck Thirteen’ and ‘Half-Way Between The Stiles’ (all from Uncanny Tales) and, ‘The Abbaye De Cerisy’ (from 'Studies And Stories') mentioned in his bibliography of Mrs. Molesworth are not included in this volume. This is simply that these stories have no supernatural aspect discernable to this editor, and hence are not included.
Side Real would like take this opportunity to thank Mike Ashley, Richard Dalby, Michael J. Flowers, Michelle Hirschhorn, David Rowlands, and Audrey Smith for their assistance in the preparation of this volume.
