Summary

In settings ranging from village cottages, London slums and hospital wards to fashionable drawing rooms and the Ladies' Gallery of the Houses of Parliament, this novel combines a gripping story with serious issues - socialism, poverty, poaching laws, journalistic ethics, the Woman Question - inspiring critics to liken it to George Eliot's novels.

Marcella by Mary Augusta Ward

Marcella, young and with a new-womanly independence, has a yearning to help the poor. When a gamekeeper is murdered near where she lives, Marcella finds herself at odds with her wealthy fiance over beliefs about property and justice. The discovery leads Marcella to pursue-among other things-a career in nursing. In settings ranging from village cottages, London slums and hospital wards to fashionable drawing rooms and the Ladies' Gallery of the Houses of Parliament, the book combines a gripping story with serious issues-socialism, rural and urban poverty, poaching laws, journalistic ethics, the Woman Question-inspiring critics to liken Marcella to George Eliot's novels.

The Broadview Literary Texts edition records the substantive differences between the two major editions published during Ward's lifetime, and included among the many appendices are news accounts of the murder trial and executions that inspired the novel, and previously unpublished letters by Ward.

NB: Mary Augusta Ward has traditionally been known as Mrs. Humphry Ward.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Mary Augusta Arnold Ward: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

Marcella

Appendix A: Ward's Introduction to the 1911 Westmoreland Edition

Appendix B: Ward's Childhood and Education

Janet Trevelyan, from The Life of Mrs. Humphry Ward (1923)
Mary Ward, from A Writer's Recollections (1918)

Appendix C: The Composition of Marcella

Mary Ward, Correspondence with George Smith, of Smith, Elder Publishers
Mary Ward, Letter to Mandell Creighton
Facsimiles of manuscript and page proof

Appendix D: Contemporary Responses to the Novel and to Ward

From Mrs. Ward's New Novel (London Times, 3 April 1894)
Hamilton W. Mabie, from A Notable New Book-Mrs. Ward'sMarcella' (The Forum 17, April 1894)
[A.I. Shand,] From Marcella (Edinburgh Review 180, July 1894)
From Fiction, New and Old: Mrs. Ward's Later Novels (AtlanticMonthly 87, 1901)
Arnold Bennett, from Mrs. Humphry Ward's Heroines (New Age3, Oct. 1908)

Appendix E: Late-Victorian Poverty and Socialism

Charles Booth, ed., from Labour and Life of the People (1889) 567
Henry George, from Progress and Poverty (1879) 560
Arnold Toynbee, from 'Progress and Poverty,' A Criticism of HenryGeorge, lecture delivered 18 January 1883 572
Fabian Tracts:
1. The Basis of the Fabian Society (1887)
2. What the Farm Laborer Wants (1894)

Appendix F: Newspaper Accounts of the Poaching Incident at Aldbury

Appendix G: The New Woman

B.A. Crackenthorpe, from The Revolt of the Daughters (The Nineteenth Century 35, January 1894)
Kathleen Cuffe, from Reply From the Daughters: I. (The Nineteenth Century 35, March 1894)
Alys W. Pearsall Smith, from A Reply from the Daughters: II. (The Nineteenth Century 35, March 1894)
F. Mabelle Pearse, from To an 'Advanced Woman' (Idler 161, Sept. 1896)

Appendix H: The District Nurse in the Late-Victorian Period

Florence Nightingale,'Introduction to The History of Nursing In The Homes of the Poor' (Sketch of the History and Progress of District Nursing From Its Commencement in the Year 1859 to the Present Date, 1890)
Florence Dacre Craven, from A Guide to District Nurses (1889)
From the Diaries of Miss Gertrude Ward (1891-92)

Works Cited and Recommended Reading

Marcella Mary Augusta Ward

Marcella by Mary Augusta Ward

Summary

Marcella Summary

Marcella by Mary Augusta Ward

Table of Contents

Additional information

Customer Reviews - Marcella