![]() ![]() This heroine/anti-heroine, Harriet Brandt, is followed by a damning, if circumstantial, trail of death. To these threatening attributes add mixed-race parentage and the result is a Victorian bogey-woman of monstrous proportions. The vampiric burden of the story devolves upon a young girl recently emancipated from a (Roaman Catholic) convent school, in sole control of her own not inconsiderable fortune and with personal qualities which suggest all manner of voracious appetites. However, the determining factor must be Marryat’s ambition, expressed in a satirical investigation of female sexuality, patriarchal repression and racial hysteria, packaged as gothic horror. For afficionados of the aforementioned titles that is a compelling argument in itself. Victorian Secrets, specialist publishers of neglected Victorian writers, have disinterred this worthy curiousity in a beautifully presented critical edition, with a collection of contextual appendices, a fascinating critical appraisal (best read at the end) and well-judged footnotes.įlorence Marryat is the daughter of the captain of the same name, Frederick Marryat, author of several childhood treasures, The Children of the New Forest and Mr Midshipman Easy. ![]() ![]() Published in 1897, the same year as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, one vampire novel thrived while the other was buried beneath layers of obscurity. A little themed reading in the Hallowe’en season can’t hurt but if themed reading isn’t your thing this novel makes several less specious claims for attention. ![]()
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