There are many adoring reviews of The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett elsewhere on the internet. If that is what you are looking for, please, go find them, for that is not what you will find here.
The Making of a Marchioness tells the Cinderella story of Emily Fox-Seton, a thirty four-year old spinster of good family but little means who makes her living by assisting wealthy women, doing everything from their errands to engaging their servants. And she is oh so good and oh so thankful to be of such help. Emily is not clever, certainly not witty or engaging, but she is good and that is her salvation.
I know that what makes this book different and special is that fact that Emily is good, that her goodness is her defining characteristic unlike so many popular heroines. But I literally ached to throw the book across the room any time other characters gazed at her admiringly, in awe of her unselfish goodness and obvious moral superiority (of which she never shows any awareness – another sign of her estimable innocence). I refrained from doing so only because it was a library book. Oh Becky Sharp, I have never loved you as much as I did reading this book and for the contrast you provided.
I found this novel far too reminiscent of the fairy tales and books of ‘strong moral character’ that are pushed upon children (hardly surprising, given the author). In those tales, the girls and women were always rewarded for their goodness (which, hopefully, goes some way towards making up for the flatness of their character). If you were very good and very selfless, a comfort to your parents and a delight to those who met you, then a rich man would come and marry you and make all your troubles disappear. That is exactly what happens here. Another advertisement to women that men don’t want clever wives, no, they want ones who will adore them without question, who will give of themselves and ask nothing in return. Far better to be the angel in the house than a true companion and equal.
I like fairy tales. I like when the prince rescues the princess and they go off to live happily ever after. What I don’t like is when the prince has dozens of princesses throwing themselves at him and he chooses the dullest, quietest, most adoring one, because he knows his life will be easiest with her since she will never cause him any trouble. I hate that intelligence is completely disregarded and that Emily is referred to several times, almost proudly, as “not clever”. If she was clever, it is implied, she could not be as good as she is. And it is only because she is good and innocent and selfless that her fairy tale comes true and, in the end, long after the wedding, her prince (or Marquis, as the case may be) comes to see her true value in his life.
Is this coming across as both angry and a bit jaded? I apologize for the departure from my normal tone, but this book stirred feelings in me that I thought had been left behind. Emily is very much the stereotype of what young women and girls are supposed to be, what we are constantly told we should be, and it’s a stereotype that I have been chaffing against since childhood. I am sure others find it a delightful read but I find I no longer have the stomach for these characterless paragons of virtue. I would not mind Emily half so much if it were difficult for her to be as good as she is, if she struggled even privately to maintain her aura of simple sweetness and purity. But she does not and so I cannot find it in me to like her or to move beyond this prejudice to admire the charm of her story.
The Captive Reader 
Interesting – I never thought of this book as coming across in the way you describe. Frances Hodgson Burnett was very of her time and she wrote to sell – and what sold in the Victorian period and early 20thc was moralistic, traditional stories about virtuous women and chivalrous men. I think I’d have the same reaction as you if this was a modern book, but knowing the period in which Burnett was writing, and the fact that she was the family breadwinner and needed her books to appeal to a wide audience – I don’t take offence at it. It’s a product of its time, and the life of Burnett herself shows that she didn’t subscribe to that stereotype. Don’t let the stereotyping put you off her novels, they’re great!
To be honest, I found the strength of my reaction a little odd. A large portion of my reading material both now and when I was younger was written during the same period as The Making of a Marchioness – for many years, I practically refused to ready anything that wasn’t written by Alcott or L.M. Montgomery. What I don’t understand is what elevates this book above the many very similar novels that were written then and promptly forgotten. Even the most perfect literary characters, like Austen’s Jane Bennet, have hopes and dreams and disappointments that allow you to sympathize with them, while I felt none of that with Emily. I think my frustration really comes from just finding her flat and lifeless.
Oh right- yes, maybe Emily just wasn’t as exciting a heroine as you had hoped for. She is a bit passive, but she reminds me of Valancy in L M Montgomery’s The Blue Castle – a bit weak and pathetic, but then she comes into her own by the end. She does lack the life and dynamism of other heroines, perhaps…but I think it’s the underdog story that maybe makes her memorable. Who doesn’t love a rags to riches tale?!
Fair enough. I can understand why others like the book, I just don’t think I’ll ever be joining their ranks. However, always interesting to hear the argument from the other side – thanks!
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Just read this after seeing your comments on the TV version which I didn’t see and won’t bother with now. I read the novel a while back and was not as bowled over as most people seem to have been. I really like this review of yours – excellent stuff and full of good points.
Thanks, Harriet. I seem only to have read reviews from people who adored the book so it is good to know I am not alone in having felt differently.
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I just read the book and enjoyed it, but I was encouraged by the introduction to read it as a biting satire on society. So Emily’s passivity and dull goodness worked as demonstrating what rich idiots revered as the pinnacle of womanhood, when really money was all that mattered. Mean rich Maria could get away with anything, the lovely friend only survives because the clueless guy wanders back from India just in the nick of time, the cousin who balks at murder gets a cushy landing, it’s only money that matters.
So not a book about characters so much as about how toxic environments warp people.