''Matilda'' is an 1825 novel by the British writer and politician
Lord Normanby
Marquess of Normanby is a title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The first creation came in 1694 in the Peerage of England in favour of John Sheffield, 3rd Earl of Mulg ...
, originally published in two volumes. It was part of the emerging, popular genre of
silver fork novel
Fashionable novels, also called silver-fork novels, were a 19th-century genre of English literature that depicted the lives of the upper class and the aristocracy.
Era
The silver-fork novels dominated the English literature market from the mid-18 ...
s that focused on the fashionable British
upper classes in the later
Regency era
The Regency era of British history officially spanned the years 1811 to 1820, though the term is commonly applied to the longer period between and 1837. George III of the United Kingdom, King George III succumbed to mental illness in late 18 ...
, and was his first published work. He followed it with a second silver fork novel, the political ''
Yes and No
''Yes'' and ''no'', or word pairs with similar words, are expressions of the affirmative and the negative, respectively, in several languages, including English. Some languages make a distinction between answers to affirmative versus negative ...
'' in 1828.
Lady Holland said "it is for the first fifty pages full of wit and observation on manners and society, and then becomes commonplace and like any trashy, sentimental novel".
Synopsis
Matilda Deleval and Augustus Arlingford fall in love. However, her
guardian
Guardian usually refers to:
* Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another
* ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper
(The) Guardian(s) may also refer to:
Places
* Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...
prevents them from meeting as Arlingford is a second son and therefore does not stand to inherit his family's wealth. While Augustus is in Europe, the newspaper ''
John Bull'' scurrilously reports he has begun living with an Italian woman. Feeling betrayed, Matilda is persuaded by her guardian to marry a wealthy self-made merchant from
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
who has recently acquired a
baronetcy. After the unexpected death of his wastrel brother Arlingford has inherited his brother's title and money, and returns to England only to find Matilda now married. Later Matilda's husband encourages her to try and persuade Augustus to allow a planned railway to be built across his estate. Witnessing her abusive treatment by her husband, Augustus takes her away from him but their romance still ends tragically. Augustus then goes to fight for the
Greeks in their
War of Independence
This is a list of wars of independence (also called liberation wars). These wars may or may not have been successful in achieving a goal of independence.
List
See also
* Lists of active separatist movements
* List of civil wars
* List of o ...
.
[Copeland p.220]
References
Bibliography
* Adburgham, Alison. ''Silver Fork Society: Fashionable Life and Literature from 1814 to 1840''. Faber & Faber, 2012.
* Copeland, Edward. ''The Silver Fork Novel: Fashionable Fiction in the Age of Reform''. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
1825 British novels
Novels set in London
Novels set in Italy
{{1820s-novel-stub