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Hope On, Hope Ever Find!

I'm posting this on behalf of fellow Reading Detective, Brenda.

The book was written by Mary Howitt and was first published in 1840 and reprinted in 1988.

Mary Howitt visited her Quaker relations in Dentdale in 1836 with her husband, William, who was collecting material for a forthcoming book to be called "Rural Life in England". Following its publication Mary herself was asked by a publisher in Cheapside to write a series of 13 improving stories "Tales for the People and their Children", of which "Hope On , Hope Ever" is the second, published in 1840.

I read it in its reprint of 1988 by Dales Historical Monographs with an introduction by David Boulton who argues that, of all the published writings by thr husband and wife team, this is the only piece worth reprinting! If that is the case I can only feel that something about the place or the people must have struck a deep chord of sympathy in Mary on her one and only visit to enable her to write with such apparent authenticity about the sometimes harsh lives and random deaths of this community of farmers and knitters. The sense of place is heightened by photographs accompanying the text showing buildings named in the book as they appeared in the 1980's so that you feel you could just go up there today and the characters would still be carrying on their daily business.

The story is a little disjointed at first but once it centres on Felix it gathers pace and is better constructed as it follows his varying fortunes as far as London and back. On the way the reader learns much about the character of the dales people,not only their petty jealousies and historic feuds but also their kindness and readiness to help in adversity, and about the practicalities of maintaining contact between the remote dale and the wider world. (I'll never again think a stagecoach a romantic way to travel.)  

I thought it was a charming tale and one in which the reader can readily forgive a slight hint of Victorian sentimentaltiy when contrasted with the gritty uncompromising contrariness of some of the characters. I'm not a native so passed it to my fellow reading detective, Doreen, to read as she had relatives in Dentdale whom she used to visit and she says it was just the same in the 1950's!

6 September 2009 from Anne

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