Miss Grimsley's Oxford Career (Signet Regency Romance)

Rating:
Summary: Different: intelligent, witty and brimming with Shakespeare!
Review: I don't need to write a lengthy review of this book, because the review below from bookjunkies has done an excellent job, with the exception of one detail: we, the readers, know from the beginning the true identity of James Gatewood, since this is revealed to us in the prologue.

Kelly's descriptions of Oxford - the town and the university - suggests that she knows both places well; I've visited Oxford many times and am familiar with most of the colleges, and I found no anomalies in her depiction of the town.

I did particularly like her portrayal of Ellen's frustration at not being able to study and participate in learning, and at her brother's wasting of the opportunity he had. Ellen is so well written as a woman who desperately wants to learn and read and argue and develop her mind, and yet is forbidden by the mores and practices of her day. (Great use of St Hilda's, too, Kelly!). Ellen's debates with James on Shakespeare are very well written, and these encounters were a joy to read.

For a very different romance, even from most of Kelly's other novels, this one is well worth a look.

Rating:
Summary: If you can find it, get it.
Review: I need only say that Carla Kelly wrote it, that's praise enough

Rating:
Summary: Oddball romance between two lovers of Shakespeare
Review: The editorial review is slightly misleading, as is the back cover blurb. Miss Ellen Grimsley, the heroine of this book, is not a student at Oxford University and its colleges (impossible then, in an era where women were not even allowed to listen to lectures). Rather, she is attending a rather disappointingly mediocre seminary at Oxford (the town). Whence then her Oxford career? Ah, that is another story, and one that kept me up, laughing slightly until 1 am.

The story begins with a devastatingly funny portrayal of the Grimsley family. Think the Tallant family (in Arabella) crossed with the family of the heroine in the film The Breakfast Club. The family is country-based, of moderate means, and of a farming background - very minor gentry, in fact. Ellen Grimsley's elder sister Honoria is all set to marry the nitwitted son of a pompous baronet. Her elder brother Gordon is frittering his time away at Oxford; his family has decided he is to be a gentleman, and to that end, some terms at Oxford will be followed by a spell in the army. Gordon is barely scraping through his first year as required. His younger sister Ellen and his younger brother Ralph are the oddballs, or the odd ones in this rather dull family - both have a passion for learning, and especially for literature. Ralph is a Shakespeare fanatic, and his older sister cannot but absorb some of the Bard's lines. Her fate has all but been decided for her - she is to marry suitably, perhaps a young farmer with no interest in books. Poor Miss Grimsley!

It is fortunate then that her father's aunt has the bottles of fine wine that her father had recklessly promised the baronet (future father-in-law of his eldest daughter). To obtain these bottles for the wedding, the father must promise to send his daughter Ellen to a seminary in Oxford, run by the aunt's friends. So off Ellen goes with her aunt - and near the town, she meets an untidy but interesting scholar names James Gatewood.

The seminary proves to be a disappointment. Instead of studying geometry and Shakespeare (let alone geography) Ellen is expected to stitch samplers (which she does badly) and confine herself to a smattering of French. Most of Shakespeare is not allowed in the school library, some of his plays being considered indecent. [Did you know that MEASURE FOR MEASURE was an indecent play? Ah yes.]. Well, fortunately for Miss Ellen whose tongue gets her into trouble from the outset, she has a couple of friends, the maid Becky and Mr James Gatewood who falls into the habit of sending her chocolates (a slight anachronism) whenever Miss Ellen is being punished by being forced to write out lines and thus missing her meals.

In the meantime, brother Gordon gets into trouble in London town. He is already in trouble with the warden of his college, having missed one too many lectures. And now, he has no money to pay a student to write his essays for him! Oh dear. Well, fortunately sister Ellen is in Oxford, and is persuaded or cajoled into writing a brilliant essay on Shakespeare for him - which Gordon passes off as his own at a public reading of all the students' essays. Ellen has received help, not to mention a copy of the play, from James Gatewood. Gordon is duly applauded for his sudden brilliance, and persuades Ellen to write another essay and another. The great Shakespearean scholar Lord Chesney (a pun perhaps on the Regency author Marion Chesney?) even deigns to attend Gordon's lectures and obtains the only fair copies of the essays from him. All well and good, except that Ellen is seething with fury that a) she is not allowed the education that her brother takes for granted; b) she is stuck in this miserable seminary; and c) that her brother is taking her efforts for granted and taking the praise that he has not earned. She has some vague hopes that one day her efforts will be acknowledged, but now the dratted Lord Chesney has her only copies of her essays (she failed to make copies for herself, you see).

In the meantime, Ellen has been skirmishing with her roommate, Fanny Bland, shortly to be sister-in-law to her sister Honoria. Unfortunately, Ellen has also fallen into the trap of wanting to hear her essays read out in the august halls of Oxford, and dresses up in her brother's breeches and cloak to sneak into the college. And one day, she is caught on a tip-off from someone, perhaps Fanny - and she is publicly disgraced, and taken home by her father who informs her that she is being traded (in marriage) for a couple of fields to the young farmer who has admired her.

So what happens to Ellen, next? And who is James Gatewood, with such ready access to Lord Chesney's library and with the funds to pay for chocolates and coal alike? Is he really the descendant of a long line of horse-traders? Or, as we suspect (but Ellen does not), is he someone else? And what will happen to Ellen's scholarly ambitions?

I won't tell you the rest of the story, because it will spoil a delightful book. But I strongly encourage you to find it and read it to understand what kind of frustrated aspirations dwelt in the hearts and minds of many a bright young woman whose only options were frequently governessing (for a pittance) or marriage (perhaps to a man without any love of books). This is not so much a romance as an indiction of the withering of many intellects for centuries (although it is hardly radical feminism). And yes, there is a romance. If you are not aware by the middle that James Gatewood loves Ellen Grimsley... well, your standards of romance are very different from mine.

Rating = 4.8 (taking two points off for some slowness here and there)

Rating:
Summary: Oddball romance between two lovers of Shakespeare
Review: The editorial review is slightly misleading, as is the back cover blurb. Miss Ellen Grimsley, the heroine of this book, is not a student at Oxford University and its colleges (impossible then, in an era where women were not even allowed to listen to lectures). Rather, she is attending a rather disappointingly mediocre seminary at Oxford (the town). Whence then her Oxford career? Ah, that is another story, and one that kept me up, laughing slightly until 1 am.

The story begins with a devastatingly funny portrayal of the Grimsley family. Think the Tallant family (in Arabella) crossed with the family of the heroine in the film The Breakfast Club. The family is country-based, of moderate means, and of a farming background - very minor gentry, in fact. Ellen Grimsley's elder sister Honoria is all set to marry the nitwitted son of a pompous baronet. Her elder brother Gordon is frittering his time away at Oxford; his family has decided he is to be a gentleman, and to that end, some terms at Oxford will be followed by a spell in the army. Gordon is barely scraping through his first year as required. His younger sister Ellen and his younger brother Ralph are the oddballs, or the odd ones in this rather dull family - both have a passion for learning, and especially for literature. Ralph is a Shakespeare fanatic, and his older sister cannot but absorb some of the Bard's lines. Her fate has all but been decided for her - she is to marry suitably, perhaps a young farmer with no interest in books. Poor Miss Grimsley!

It is fortunate then that her father's aunt has the bottles of fine wine that her father had recklessly promised the baronet (future father-in-law of his eldest daughter). To obtain these bottles for the wedding, the father must promise to send his daughter Ellen to a seminary in Oxford, run by the aunt's friends. So off Ellen goes with her aunt - and near the town, she meets an untidy but interesting scholar names James Gatewood.

The seminary proves to be a disappointment. Instead of studying geometry and Shakespeare (let alone geography) Ellen is expected to stitch samplers (which she does badly) and confine herself to a smattering of French. Most of Shakespeare is not allowed in the school library, some of his plays being considered indecent. [Did you know that MEASURE FOR MEASURE was an indecent play? Ah yes.]. Well, fortunately for Miss Ellen whose tongue gets her into trouble from the outset, she has a couple of friends, the maid Becky and Mr James Gatewood who falls into the habit of sending her chocolates (a slight anachronism) whenever Miss Ellen is being punished by being forced to write out lines and thus missing her meals.

In the meantime, brother Gordon gets into trouble in London town. He is already in trouble with the warden of his college, having missed one too many lectures. And now, he has no money to pay a student to write his essays for him! Oh dear. Well, fortunately sister Ellen is in Oxford, and is persuaded or cajoled into writing a brilliant essay on Shakespeare for him - which Gordon passes off as his own at a public reading of all the students' essays. Ellen has received help, not to mention a copy of the play, from James Gatewood. Gordon is duly applauded for his sudden brilliance, and persuades Ellen to write another essay and another. The great Shakespearean scholar Lord Chesney (a pun perhaps on the Regency author Marion Chesney?) even deigns to attend Gordon's lectures and obtains the only fair copies of the essays from him. All well and good, except that Ellen is seething with fury that a) she is not allowed the education that her brother takes for granted; b) she is stuck in this miserable seminary; and c) that her brother is taking her efforts for granted and taking the praise that he has not earned. She has some vague hopes that one day her efforts will be acknowledged, but now the dratted Lord Chesney has her only copies of her essays (she failed to make copies for herself, you see).

In the meantime, Ellen has been skirmishing with her roommate, Fanny Bland, shortly to be sister-in-law to her sister Honoria. Unfortunately, Ellen has also fallen into the trap of wanting to hear her essays read out in the august halls of Oxford, and dresses up in her brother's breeches and cloak to sneak into the college. And one day, she is caught on a tip-off from someone, perhaps Fanny - and she is publicly disgraced, and taken home by her father who informs her that she is being traded (in marriage) for a couple of fields to the young farmer who has admired her.

So what happens to Ellen, next? And who is James Gatewood, with such ready access to Lord Chesney's library and with the funds to pay for chocolates and coal alike? Is he really the descendant of a long line of horse-traders? Or, as we suspect (but Ellen does not), is he someone else? And what will happen to Ellen's scholarly ambitions?

I won't tell you the rest of the story, because it will spoil a delightful book. But I strongly encourage you to find it and read it to understand what kind of frustrated aspirations dwelt in the hearts and minds of many a bright young woman whose only options were frequently governessing (for a pittance) or marriage (perhaps to a man without any love of books). This is not so much a romance as an indiction of the withering of many intellects for centuries (although it is hardly radical feminism). And yes, there is a romance. If you are not aware by the middle that James Gatewood loves Ellen Grimsley... well, your standards of romance are very different from mine.

Rating = 4.8 (taking two points off for some slowness here and there)