 First edition (US) | |
| Author | Victoria Holt |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Romantic suspense, Gothic novel |
| Publisher | London: Collins New York: Doubleday |
Publication date | 1960 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 334 |
| ISBN | 0449239241 |
| OCLC | 24948857 |
| 823/.914 | |
| LC Class | PR6015 .I3M57 1960 |
| Followed by | Kirkland Revels (1962) |
Mistress of Mellyn was the first Gothic romance novel written by Eleanor Hibbert under the pen name Victoria Holt. [1] [2]
A young woman, Martha Leigh, is hired as a governess by Connan TreMellyn, a widower, for his daughter, Alvean. Martha travels to Cornwall and becomes fascinated by her employer and his dead wife. While struggling with her increasingly romantic feeling towards Connan TreMellyn, Martha also tries to solve the mystery of his wife's death in the haunted mansion while trying to avoid death herself. [3]
Set in 19th century England, Mistress of Mellyn weaves together elements from earlier Gothic novels such as Jane Eyre (1847), The Woman in White (1859), and Rebecca (1938) - a young, impressionable girl meets a mysterious widower in a mansion filled with the memories of his first wife who has suffered a tragic death. [3]
The romance between the young governess and her handsome employer is hampered by the mystery surrounding the tragic death of his first wife. Looking to solve the mystery, the young woman starts poking around the gloomy corners of the spooky mansion set on the wild Cornish cliffs. [4]
The novel was published by Doubleday in the United States and Collins in the United Kingdom. [4]
The novel was serialized in the Ladies' Home Journal , chosen as a Reader's Digest condensed book and issued in a treasury volume that included other Gothic authors such as Daphne du Maurier, Phyllis A. Whitney, Evelyn Anthony, Madeleine Brent and Jessica Nelson North. [5]
Several reprints were issued over the years. It was issued in ebook format by St. Martin's Griffin, New York in 2009 and St. Martin's Press, New York in 2013.
The novel's setting in Cornwall made the resemblance to Rebecca so remarkable that it was speculated that Victoria Holt was a pseudonym for Daphne du Maurier. After six Victoria Holt novels were published over eight years, it was revealed that Hibbert was the author. [6]
Most early reviews were positive. A critic found "the dramatic tale compounded of mystery and romance, and full of surprises for even the most wary reader." [7] Another critic said it was "a novel to delight the most romantic reader." [4] Mistress of Mellyn became an instant international bestseller and revived the Gothic romantic suspense genre. [8] [9] [10] The book earned Hibbert £100,000. [2]
In 1961, Mildred C. Kuner adapted the novel into a play in three acts. [11] Paramount purchased the film rights to the novel, but never produced a film. [2] [4]
The novel was adapted into the 1965 Taiwanese film The Bride Who Has Returned from Hell .
Northanger Abbey is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by Jane Austen. Austen was also influenced by Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote (1752). Northanger Abbey was completed in 1803, the first of Austen's novels completed in full, but was published posthumously in 1817 with Persuasion. The story concerns Catherine Morland, the naïve young protagonist, and her journey to a better understanding of herself and of the world around her. How Catherine views the world has been distorted by her fondness for Gothic novels and an active imagination.
Jane Eyre is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 16 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Jane Eyre is a Bildungsroman which follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall.
Berengaria of Navarre was Queen of England as the wife of Richard I of England. She was the eldest daughter of Sancho VI of Navarre and Sancha of Castile. As is the case with many of the medieval English queens, little is known of her life.
Ann Radcliffe was an English novelist and a pioneer of Gothic fiction. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining Gothic fiction respectability in the 1790s. Radcliffe was the most popular writer of her day and almost universally admired; contemporary critics called her the mighty enchantress and the Shakespeare of romance-writers, and her popularity continued through the 19th century. Interest has revived in the early 21st century, with the publication of three biographies.
Eleanor Alice Hibbert was an English writer of historical romances. She was a prolific writer who published several books a year in different literary genres, each genre under a different pen name: Jean Plaidy for fictionalized history of European royalty, Victoria Holt for gothic romances, and Philippa Carr for a multi-generational family saga. She also wrote light romances, crime novels, murder mysteries and thrillers under pseudonyms Eleanor Burford, Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Anna Percival, and Ellalice Tate.
A governess is a largely obsolete term for a woman employed as a private tutor, who teaches and trains a child or children in their home. A governess often lives in the same residence as the children she is teaching. In contrast to a nanny, the primary role of a governess is teaching, rather than meeting the physical needs of children; hence a governess is usually in charge of school-aged children, rather than babies.
Johanna Clara Louise Lehzen, also known as Baroness Louise Lehzen, was the governess and later companion to Queen Victoria.
Rebecca is a 1940 American romantic psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was Hitchcock's first American project, and his first film under contract with producer David O. Selznick. The screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison, and adaptation by Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan, were based on the 1938 novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier.
A lady's maid is a female personal attendant who waits on her female employer. The role of a lady's maid is similar to that of a gentleman's valet.
Elephants Can Remember is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in 1972. It features her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and the recurring character Ariadne Oliver. This was the last novel to feature either character, although it was succeeded by Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, which had been written in the early 1940s but was published last. Elephants Can Remember concentrates on memory and oral testimony.
Sir John Ponsonby Conroy, 1st Baronet, KCH was a British Army officer who served as comptroller to the Duchess of Kent and her young daughter, Princess Victoria, the future Queen of the United Kingdom.
Cover Her Face is the debut 1962 crime novel of P. D. James. It details the investigations by her poetry-writing detective Adam Dalgliesh into the death of a young, ambitious maid, surrounded by a family which has reasons to want her gone – or dead. The title is taken from a passage from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi: "Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle; she died young."
Jane Eyre is the fictional heroine and the titular protagonist in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name. The story follows Jane's infancy and childhood as an orphan, her employment first as a teacher and then as a governess, and her romantic involvement with her employer, the mysterious and moody Edward Rochester. Jane is noted by critics for her dependability, strong mindedness and individualism. The author deliberately created Jane as an unglamorous figure, in contrast to conventional heroines of fiction, and possibly part-autobiographical.
Eleanor May Tomlinson is an English actress and singer. She has appeared in films including Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008), Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), Colette (2018) and Love Wedding Repeat (2020). Tomlinson also starred in the BBC One series Poldark (2015–2019).
A Sicilian Romance is a gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe. It was her second published work, and was first published anonymously in 1790.
The Castle of Wolfenbach (1793) is the most famous novel written by the English Gothic novelist Eliza Parsons. First published in two volumes in 1793, it is among the seven "horrid novels" recommended by the character Isabella Thorpe in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey and an important early work in the genre, predating Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Monk Lewis's The Monk.
Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read The Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.
Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?
I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.
Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?
Edward IV of England has been depicted in popular culture a number of times.
Hannah Lightfoot, was a Quaker in Westminster who had married Isaac Axford in December 1753 but, before the end of the following year, had disappeared. Later gossip, originally in amusement and ridicule, first noted in print in 1770, but much embroidered in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, linked her name, although some eight years his senior, with the extremely shy fifteen-year-old, Prince George, who became George III of the United Kingdom in 1760 and was known to admire the simplicity of the Quakers, it being said after his death that he had engineered her abduction, married and had children by her. However, no contemporary source connecting the Prince and Hannah has ever been found.
The Beetle is an 1897 horror novel by British writer Richard Marsh, in which a shape-shifting ancient Egyptian entity seeks revenge on a British member of Parliament. The novel initially sold more copies than Bram Stoker's Dracula, a similar horror story published in the same year.
The Secret Woman is a Gothic romance and suspense novel written by English author Eleanor Hibbert under the pseudonym Victoria Holt. It was originally published in 1970 and is considered to be a bestseller. Set in 1887, it chronicles Anna Brett's scandalous romance with the married ship captain Redvers Stretton. As they sail across the South Seas, tensions build among Anna, Redvers, and everyone else on-board The Serene Lady, and a mystery involving murder, the destruction of ship called The Secret Woman, and a missing fortune of diamonds begins to unravel.