{"id":5819,"date":"2025-01-31T12:10:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T12:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/?p=5819"},"modified":"2025-01-31T12:10:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T12:10:36","slug":"review-miss-lockhartes-letters-by-barbara-metzger-1998","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/2025\/01\/31\/review-miss-lockhartes-letters-by-barbara-metzger-1998\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Miss Lockharte’s Letters by Barbara Metzger (1998)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"A seriously peculiar book, wildly implausible and with a veritable tsunami of anachronisms but very, very funny, for all that.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the premise: Miss Rosellen Lockharte has fallen on hard times. Her clergyman father has died, leaving her penniless, and although her uncle tried, rather half-heartedly, to introduce her into London society, his daughter\u2019s machinations got Rosellen compromised and banished in disgrace. Since then she\u2019s been eking out a poor living teaching penmanship to the daughters of the aristocracy at a rather shady girls\u2019 school. An outbreak of influenza at the school makes her so ill that she\u2019s convinced she\u2019s going to die. As a last act before death, she decides to write to all the people who, in one way or another, set her on this road to poverty and illness, to tell them (after listing all their transgressions) that she forgives them. Except for one, Wynn, Viscount Stanford – his crime is too heinous for forgiveness.<\/p>\n

Rosellen survives the influenza, but several mysterious accidents leave her even worse off than before. But help is on its way, in the shape of most of the people she wrote to, but particularly Viscount Stanley, who is the first to actually reach her in her paltry attic room. He\u2019s brought flowers and is ready to beat a hasty retreat, but a single tear as he\u2019s about to leave makes him decide to help her. He whisks her away from the school, thinking he\u2019ll send her to one of his more distant estates to recover and be looked after, but after various mishaps, he gradually develops a new plan – he\u2019ll take her to London, to the care of his mother and sister, and introduce her into society and\u2026 well, we can see where this is going. This is one of the pleasures of the story, Wynn\u2019s gradual realisation that, however prickly and spirited and independent Rosellen is, she\u2019s exactly right for him.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to be honest, and say that credibility isn\u2019t this book\u2019s strongest suit. The \u2018accidents\u2019 that befall Rosellen and her miraculous escapes from them are almost too silly for words, some of the characters are pretty silly, too, not to mention the dog, and Wynn\u2019s determined refusal to believe that someone is trying to kill her is really carried too far. But the moment when he realises the truth is just perfect. \u201cYou could have been killed,\u201d he says, horrified. \u201cI could have lost you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The romance, once it gets going, is the strongest part of the book. The plot is distinctly wobbly (why does the villain keep trying to murder Rosellen even when the reason for it is gone?), the loose threads are more or less tied up at the end almost as an afterthought, and I\u2019m still not entirely clear where the fifty pounds came from, or why. As for historical accuracy, forget it. But it\u2019s the funniest book I\u2019ve read for months, and that alone makes it worthy of four stars. Here\u2019s just one sample that made me laugh out loud:<\/p>\n

\u2018Uncle would turn purple with apoplexy at the price of Rosellen\u2019s ball gown. Aunt Haverhill would go ashen at the low cut. Clarice would turn green with envy. Rosellen was pink with pleasure.\u2019<\/i><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A seriously peculiar book, wildly implausible and with a veritable tsunami of anachronisms but very, very funny, for all that. Here\u2019s the premise: Miss Rosellen Lockharte has fallen on hard times. Her clergyman father has died, leaving her penniless, and although her uncle tried, rather half-heartedly, to introduce her into London society, his daughter\u2019s machinations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[273],"class_list":["post-5819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-metzger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5823,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819\/revisions\/5823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}