 Cover of the 1890 edition | |
| Author | R. D. Blackmore |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Publication date | 1890 |
Kit and Kitty: a story of west Middlesex is a three-volume novel by R. D. Blackmore published in 1890. It is set near Sunbury-on-Thames in Middlesex.
The novel is set in and around "Uncle Corny's" garden near Sunbury-on-Thames. The story turns on the love of Kit, the market-gardener's nephew, for Kitty, the daughter of a good, but foolish scientific man, who has succeeded in making his own and his daughter's life miserable by marrying a second wife. [1] This lady and her son Donovan are the villains of the story, and by their machinations poor Kit and Kitty are separated and made miserable. [1]
The course of true love is thwarted both before and after marriage: Kitty, for example, being stolen from her bridegroom during the honeymoon. [2] Poetic justice is amply wreaked in the end on all ill-doers in an accumulation of horrors, including a parricide, a suicide, a leper husband returned to claim his wife, and her collapse from the shock into paralysis and imbecility. [2]
Kit and Kitty was first published as three volumes in 1890. [3]
Kit and Kitty received mixed reviews. The Guardian found the book "interesting, well written, and very pleasant to read." [1] The Dublin Review reckoned that "Mr. Blackmore's gift of story-telling enables him to silence common-sense with a wave of his magician's wand." [2] The Eclectic Magazine even reckoned that the novel would "rank among this great novelist's best work." [4] The Spectator enjoyed the first volume with its suburban idyll, but found the rest of the story to be "melodrama ... of the cheapest kind, with impossible villains, incredible plots, and a final scene of butchery which rivals the close of the last act of Hamlet." [5] It also complained about the "aggressive" use of "the technical details of fruit-growing" as a theme. [5]
Hampton is a suburb of Greater London on the north bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England, and the historic county of Middlesex. Hampton is bounded by Bushy Park to the east, the suburbs of Hampton Hill and Fulwell to the north, green belt to the west, and the Thames to the south.
Richard Doddridge Blackmore, known as R. D. Blackmore, was one of the most famous English novelists of the second half of the nineteenth century. He won acclaim for vivid descriptions and personification of the countryside, sharing with Thomas Hardy a Western England background and a strong sense of regional setting in his works.
Sunbury-on-Thames is a town on the north bank of the River Thames in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, England, 13 mi (21 km) southwest of central London. Historically part of the county of Middlesex, in 1965 Sunbury and other surrounding towns were initially intended to form part of the newly created county of Greater London, but were instead transferred to Surrey. Sunbury adjoins Feltham to the north, Hampton to the east, Ashford to the northwest and Shepperton to the southwest. Walton-on-Thames is to the south, on the opposite bank of the Thames.
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Perlycross: a tale of the western hills is a three-volume novel by R. D. Blackmore published in 1894. The story is set in eastern Devon around 1830.
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