~ Persephone Secret Santa Gift ~

Today is the day we reveal the gift we received from our Persephone Secret Santa. I opened my gift this morning - it's been sitting on the shelf tormenting me!

Christy from the blog, A Good Stopping Point, sent me The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I'm thrilled! Thank you you Christy! I have wanted to read this book for a long time.

This is the picture on the front of the Classic Persephone, my copy is the beautiful Persephone dove-grey and from the website:

Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) and The Secret Garden (1911) are enduring bestsellers, but this 1901 novel is many people's favourite: Nancy Mitford and Marghanita Laski loved it, and some US college courses teach it alongside Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.


Part I, the original Marchioness, is in the Cinderella (and Miss Pettigrew) tradition, while Part II, called The Methods of Lady Walderhurst, is an absorbing melodrama; most novels end 'and they lived happily ever after' but this one develops into a realistic commentary on late-Victorian marriage. 'Delightful... A sparky sense of humour combined with lively social commentary make this a joy to read' wrote the Bookseller. Kate Saunders told Open Book listeners that she was up until two in the morning finishing this 'wildly romantic tale whose 'hero and heroine are totally unromantic' (Daily Telegraph); the Guardian referred to 'a touch of Edith Wharton's stern unsentimentality'; the Spectator wrote about the novel's 'singular charm'; and the Daily Mail stressed the 'sharp observations in this charming tale.'

My book is lined with this beautiful tulip print and came with a matching bookmark!