Pam’s Pictorama Post: It has been a very long time indeed since I have posted about a writer or books I have been reading. That is in part because the last year did not lend itself to reading. Helping during my
mother’s last illness and the months that followed, ultimately leading to my changing jobs at the end of the year, certainly there were books, but reading was sporadic. Love or hate my book posts, books are back and today kicks off an interest in Mrs. de Horne Vaizey, nee Jessie Bell, later Mrs. Henry Mansergh and finally Mrs. de Horne Vaizey.

Pictorama readers of long-standing know that in recent years (especially during the at home pandemic years) I chased down the writings of numerous authors including all the Judy Bolton mysteries (a post about those can be found here) and strolled through the collected works of several women who were writing short stories and novels that depicted the emerging woman in the US and Britain at the dawn of the 20th century.

These included the adult novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett (in several parts, but it all starts here),
the (glorious) short stories and novels of Edna Ferber (here) and the various series books including the Red Cross Girls, Ruth Fielding books and the many volumes of my beloved Campfire Girls. (Starting here, here and here if you are game.)

You might remember that my birthday this year turned into a day of poking around bookstores downtown, including The Strand’s re-opened rare book room. I picked up a copy of More About Pixie, the second volume in a three novel series by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey (Mrs. GdeHV for my purposes going forward)

I was able to find the first volume of the books about Pixie online, Pixie O’Shaughnessy, with relative ease on my old friend Project Gutenberg. (All three volumes mentioned here are available on this free online resource as well as some others, although beyond these books only about half of her publications seem to be readily available. Many volumes of her work are also available at the Internet Archive.) I have largely been able to download illustrated versions of the books which I urge you to try to do as some of the illustrations are very good. (Oddly I can’t seem to open and share them here and show what I was able to find otherwise. I will add that the blog site isn’t actually allowing me to add images today so I apologize for the largely un-illustrated post!)

This first volume is a wonderful depiction of life in Ireland in the waning days of the 19th century. Written in 1902 it is a bit earlier than the copious volumes of my earlier reading I mention above. The impoverished, motherless (a recent loss) family resides in a dilapidated castle which becomes a sort of
character in the book, as does the backdrop of the small Irish town they reside in.

Pixie is a young child still at the start of this book – she is not a physically attractive youngster (this is an oddly defining characteristic that stays with her; her looks do not improve with age), however she has such an outspoken and winning personality that she always everyone’s favorite. To make up for her physical limitations as a beauty, she has two lavishly beautiful sisters (Mrs. GdeHV is a little obsessed with her heroines having gray eyes, they all do), Bridgie and Esmerelda, and attractive brothers in the bargain.
The funds are scraped together to send Pixie off to a private school in London and her adventures there make up the second half or so of the volume. (Esmerelda is hot tempered and so extravagantly stunning that she is somewhat done away with at the close of volume one.)

Written a year later, volume two, the one I picked up at The Strand More About Pixie, takes an interesting turn. It is in fact not so much more about Pixie, as the story is actually told by a young woman neighbor, a
recovering invalid, who lives on the street in London where the family decamps to at the start of this volume. Her encounters with the O’Shaughnessy family include Pixie, but in reality it focuses more on her friendship with one of the older sisters, Bridgie, who plays mother to the clan. Pixie does reassert
herself in the latter part of this volume, but it is Bridgie and the neighbor girl, Sylvia, and their friendship that is at the heart of the book.

Much of the book concerns the slow recovery of Sylvia (an illness which is given no name but has even affected her bones as they gravely consider needing to amputate her foot) who is another motherless child (life of mother’s was evidently cheap), living with an aunt while her father is away in India. (Mrs.
GdeHV likes to send men to India and bring them back after many years. To date I have barely been in India with her books, but wouldn’t be surprised if we end up there one of these days.)

It isn’t until 1914 that the final volume of the three is published, The Love Affairs of Pixie. Our prolific author has penned at least 17 volumes between these so it is a more mature writer who writes this novel. It interests me that she decided to turn her hand back to a now fully adult Pixie who returns as the heroine and focus of this story. Much of this story brings Pixie and the reader back to Esmerelda and Ireland, although the Ireland of this book is less lovingly described. Pixie remains unattractive on the face of things and in fact the book opens with her own discovery of this and is a theme throughout, but the pluckiness and good heartedness of Pixie has her as a sought after mate who (spoiler alert) finds her mate at the close of this volume.

Mrs. GdeHV clearly liked to assign herself challenges to keep things interesting. These are not formulaic series books (not that there’s anything wrong with those!), but instead you can see her making choices and setting up approaches to keep things different and interesting. I’ll cover more of her biography tomorrow, a sort of sad tale despite being a very prolific writer. She must have been popular in her time, but sadly volumes appear to be hard to find and I know she wrote short stories but none of those have turned up yet. However, I have only just begun my research so undoubtedly more to come.