Mark Rutherford (1831–1913)

A superb novel from William Hale White alias "Mark Rutherford", written in 1896. Clara and her sister, Madge are educated provincial women (c. 1844) whose independence sets them apart. Their social and religious concerns are advanced, not regurgitations of standard Christian doctrine. Their outlook is the same as the author who had to overturn a Dissenting background, and rediscover an alternative to the concentration on self as part of his creed.
This rediscovery centred on a "living God", something different from the "artificial God of the churches" and was awakened by, among others, Wordsworth who "exposed to him the need to be free to decide for oneself what he could believe, what was right and what was wrong".
It is with this trust that Clara takes hold of what is true when her sister becomes pregnant to a nice man, but one with whom marriage would be impossible through incompatibility.
A novel that was ahead of its time for nineteenth century readers because it dispensed with a clear moral message and satisfactory conclusion, suffering a similar fate to Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" which moralists revelled in declaiming.
Read this book. Great introduction by Lorraine Davies.
A must read… (more)

Clara and Madge Hopgood stood out in their town because their progressive father had them educated. After his death, they and their mother are just getting by. Madge, the more passionate of the two sisters, makes a poor decision she soon regrets. The novel describes how the family's life is now changed.

While the story is beautiful and dramatic, Rutherford makes too much of a point of criticizing those who believe they know how to improve the lot of the lives of the poor without knowing the poor.

A good read.… (more)