Eliza Parsons (1739–1811)
Autor(a) de The Castle of Wolfenbach
About the Author
Obras por Eliza Parsons
The Errors of Education 2 exemplares
The Voluntary Exile 1 exemplar
Woman as she should be; or, memoirs of Mrs. Menville. A novel. In four volumes. By Mrs. Parsons, 1 exemplar
The History of Miss Meredith 1 exemplar
The mysterious visit 1 exemplar
Associated Works
The Complete Northanger Horrid Novel Collection (9 Books of Gothic Romance and Horror) (2013) — Contribuidor — 22 exemplares
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Outros nomes
- Phelp, Eliza (birth name)
Parsons, Mrs. (Eliza), -1811 (Eliza) - Data de nascimento
- 1739
- Data de falecimento
- 1811-02-05
- Sexo
- female
- Nacionalidade
- UK
- Local de nascimento
- Plymouth, Devon, England, UK
- Local de falecimento
- Leytonstone, Essez, England, UK
- Locais de residência
- London, England, UK
Leytonstone, Essex, England, UK - Ocupações
- novelist
Fatal error: Call to undefined function isLitsy() in /var/www/html/inc_magicDB.php on line 425- Eliza Parsons, née Phelp, was the only daughter of a middle-class merchant family in Plymouth. In 1760, she married James Parsons, a turpentine dealer with whom she had eight children. The family moved to a London suburb when her husband's business was affected by the American War of Independence. After her husband's death, Eliza Parsons turned to writing Gothic novels to support herself and her family. She produced about 20 multi-volume novels between 1790 and 1810, and also worked at the Royal Wardrobe. She was briefly imprisoned for debt in 1803. She was popular with the public though receiving only faint praise from literary critics. Eliza Parsons was the only novelist with two books in Jane Austen's library (which can be viewed on LibraryThing). Parsons's novels The Castle of Wolfenbach and The Mysterious Warning are mentioned by the character Catherine Morland in Austen's Northanger Abbey.
Membros
Discussions
Castle Of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons - lyzard tutoring SqueakyChu em 75 Books Challenge for 2013 (Março 2018)
Castle Of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons (Volume 2) - lyzard tutoring SqueakyChu em 75 Books Challenge for 2013 (Dezembro 2016)
Críticas
The Castle of Wolfenbach por Eliza Parsons
I have given up on this quite quickly, partly because I found it hard to distinguish the characters, but also due to the poor formatting of the book, with no separate lines for new dialogue, resulting in solid blocks of text which is a bugbear of mine. This was one of the Jane Austen "horrid novels" mentioned in Northanger Abbey.
Sometimes a book is incredibly preachy and moral, but still a good read. This is not one of those. The writing is fine, but the story is just so unrelentingly moral, religious, and dull. There's not "fun evil", just dull people gambling, throwing fits because they don't get their way, and a lot of mom blame for the bad characters of their kids. I guess it's too realistic in that way.
I am interested in how Parsons gets from here to The Castle of Wolfenbach (which I remember liking), so I'm going to keep reading her books in order, but I need some Charlotte Dacre or Isabella Kelly after this dull book.… (mais)
I am interested in how Parsons gets from here to The Castle of Wolfenbach (which I remember liking), so I'm going to keep reading her books in order, but I need some Charlotte Dacre or Isabella Kelly after this dull book.… (mais)
OMG this was awful and great. It hits all the gothic high notes. No wonder it was one of the “horrid novels” Jane Austen had her characters wax on about in Northanger Abbey (and which she couldn’t help parodying). Here are my notes while reading -
SPOILERS!
They know nothing about her, crazy to be so trusting, it’s like this in a lot of old books. - So she just shows up at these people’s little cabin and of course they take her in and give her shelter, food, sympathy and their complete trust. Just for once I’d like the sweet-faced person to be an axe murderer.
OMG he’s showing her porn!! - The description says that Matilda is on the run from her lecherous uncle. And how. There are many references to his trying to cop a feel (decorously described as having to submit to his “caresses”. Then there are the nakey pictures. OMG.
Unbelievable that the Countess W could be hiding and Bertha not know. Seriously. Bertha is a dope and is tiresome in her constant flattery and compliments.
And the faux uncle appears! The pacing is manic. No time to settle. Plenty of time for tears and fainting though.
And even more sinister, Count W shows up and decides to destroy all evidence. Wicked and wickeder, the uncle and the Count (I really wish Eliza had other titles to sprinkle around; there are something like four Counts in the book, complete with Countesses.).
The woods outside the Castle W is full of nick-of-time saviors. Seriously, what is this stretch of woods, a highway for pilgrims or Samaritans? Everyone who runs headlong into them gets rescued by some soft-hearted folks who just happen to be there.
Marchioness = Fairy Godmother. Doesn’t anyone who is poor feel the savior bug?
Mademoiselle de Fontenelle = foil and wedge. Too bad she really doesn’t do much to injure M. And it’s funny how the super criminals are forgiven and allowed to retire into obscurity, but this little gossip is left to ignominy.
The mysterious and surrendered children = speculation for M’s origins, glad she turns out to be none of the ones I suspected.
Oh boy is birth and rank ever ingrained into people of this time. Of course everything amiable and proper should be innate in one of high rank, but if it exists in someone not recognized as high rank, these same qualities are dubious and of course ripe for corruption. or they might just cease and the person become base.
All the fainting and weeping - how exhausting. I have to wonder how much of an influence this fictional behavior was on real behavior. No wonder Austen characterized this novel as horrid. In a good way though. Nothin’ but love for ya.… (mais)
SPOILERS!
They know nothing about her, crazy to be so trusting, it’s like this in a lot of old books. - So she just shows up at these people’s little cabin and of course they take her in and give her shelter, food, sympathy and their complete trust. Just for once I’d like the sweet-faced person to be an axe murderer.
OMG he’s showing her porn!! - The description says that Matilda is on the run from her lecherous uncle. And how. There are many references to his trying to cop a feel (decorously described as having to submit to his “caresses”. Then there are the nakey pictures. OMG.
Unbelievable that the Countess W could be hiding and Bertha not know. Seriously. Bertha is a dope and is tiresome in her constant flattery and compliments.
And the faux uncle appears! The pacing is manic. No time to settle. Plenty of time for tears and fainting though.
And even more sinister, Count W shows up and decides to destroy all evidence. Wicked and wickeder, the uncle and the Count (I really wish Eliza had other titles to sprinkle around; there are something like four Counts in the book, complete with Countesses.).
The woods outside the Castle W is full of nick-of-time saviors. Seriously, what is this stretch of woods, a highway for pilgrims or Samaritans? Everyone who runs headlong into them gets rescued by some soft-hearted folks who just happen to be there.
Marchioness = Fairy Godmother. Doesn’t anyone who is poor feel the savior bug?
Mademoiselle de Fontenelle = foil and wedge. Too bad she really doesn’t do much to injure M. And it’s funny how the super criminals are forgiven and allowed to retire into obscurity, but this little gossip is left to ignominy.
The mysterious and surrendered children = speculation for M’s origins, glad she turns out to be none of the ones I suspected.
Oh boy is birth and rank ever ingrained into people of this time. Of course everything amiable and proper should be innate in one of high rank, but if it exists in someone not recognized as high rank, these same qualities are dubious and of course ripe for corruption. or they might just cease and the person become base.
All the fainting and weeping - how exhausting. I have to wonder how much of an influence this fictional behavior was on real behavior. No wonder Austen characterized this novel as horrid. In a good way though. Nothin’ but love for ya.… (mais)
1 
Bookmarque | 6 outras críticas | Mar 3, 2016 |
Bookmarque | 6 outras críticas | Mar 3, 2016 | My current course offers the following quotation from 1798 on 'terrorist novel writing' (or in other words the gothic novel):
Take - An old castle, half of it ruinous,
A long gallery, with a great many doors, some secret ones,
Three murdered bodies, quite fresh.
As many skeletons, in chests and presses.
An old woman hanging by the neck, with her throat cut.
Assassins and desperadoes, 'quant. suff.'
Noise, whispers and groans, three score at least.
Mix them together, in the form of three volumes, to be taken at any of the watering places before going to bed.
Eliza Parsons must have been working from a very similar list when she wrote Castle of Wolfenbach, one of the 'horrid novels' loved by Catherine and Isabella in Northanger Abbey. There aren't any skeletons (in either chest or press) but one of the quite fresh murdered bodies goes into a chest instead, so I expect that will do. And I think Eliza's list must have included an extra line, something like: 'one heroine, able to weep and faint with great regularity' as really Eliza's heroine Matilda weeps and faints at the slightest pretext no matter whether the occasion be happy or sad. So to be honest, it's not great literature. But I found it very interesting to read one of the books that Jane Austen was parodying in Northanger Abbey, one of my favourite books.
The basic plot is far-fetched to say the least. Matilda escapes from an uncle who seems to have incestuous (or are they) designs upon her virtue, and finds herself at the supposedly haunted Castle of Wolfenbach where she discovers the equally badly treated Countess of Wolfenbach, unjustly imprisoned by her husband for the last sixteen years. The Countess is kidnapped, her maidservant murdered and Matilda must flee again from her pursuing uncle. There is much pursuing going on throughout the novel, of Matilda and of the Countess, as the location moves from Switzerland, to Paris, to London and beyond. There is a somewhat strange sense of morality throughout, where the villains who are guilty of murder, kidnap, and false imprisonment are forgiven, whereas someone who is guilty of nothing more than a nasty piece of gossip seems to be guilty of a mortal sin.
I've not read a lot of gothic novels but I have a feeling that this one probably isn't the best of the genre. But as I said an interesting read nonetheless.… (mais)
Take - An old castle, half of it ruinous,
A long gallery, with a great many doors, some secret ones,
Three murdered bodies, quite fresh.
As many skeletons, in chests and presses.
An old woman hanging by the neck, with her throat cut.
Assassins and desperadoes, 'quant. suff.'
Noise, whispers and groans, three score at least.
Mix them together, in the form of three volumes, to be taken at any of the watering places before going to bed.
Eliza Parsons must have been working from a very similar list when she wrote Castle of Wolfenbach, one of the 'horrid novels' loved by Catherine and Isabella in Northanger Abbey. There aren't any skeletons (in either chest or press) but one of the quite fresh murdered bodies goes into a chest instead, so I expect that will do. And I think Eliza's list must have included an extra line, something like: 'one heroine, able to weep and faint with great regularity' as really Eliza's heroine Matilda weeps and faints at the slightest pretext no matter whether the occasion be happy or sad. So to be honest, it's not great literature. But I found it very interesting to read one of the books that Jane Austen was parodying in Northanger Abbey, one of my favourite books.
The basic plot is far-fetched to say the least. Matilda escapes from an uncle who seems to have incestuous (or are they) designs upon her virtue, and finds herself at the supposedly haunted Castle of Wolfenbach where she discovers the equally badly treated Countess of Wolfenbach, unjustly imprisoned by her husband for the last sixteen years. The Countess is kidnapped, her maidservant murdered and Matilda must flee again from her pursuing uncle. There is much pursuing going on throughout the novel, of Matilda and of the Countess, as the location moves from Switzerland, to Paris, to London and beyond. There is a somewhat strange sense of morality throughout, where the villains who are guilty of murder, kidnap, and false imprisonment are forgiven, whereas someone who is guilty of nothing more than a nasty piece of gossip seems to be guilty of a mortal sin.
I've not read a lot of gothic novels but I have a feeling that this one probably isn't the best of the genre. But as I said an interesting read nonetheless.… (mais)
2 SandDune | 6 outras críticas | Dec 8, 2013 |
SandDune | 6 outras críticas | Dec 8, 2013 | Listas
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Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 18
- Also by
- 2
- Membros
- 208
- Popularidade
- #106,482
- Avaliação
- 3.1
- Críticas
- 8
- ISBN
- 27