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Lodore
Sign in to saveright|thumb|Title page from Lodore (1835) Lodore, also published under the title The Beautiful Widow, is a novel by Romantic novelist Mary Shelley, completed in 1833 and published in 1835.
Book · Open Library
- Author
- Mary Shelley
- First published
- 1835
- Editions
- 149
- Subjects
- British and irish fiction (fictional works by one author), In literature, Fiction, romance, historical, regency, Fiction, romance, historical, general, Fiction, classics, Literature, Women, Social conditions
via Open Library
Wikidata facts
- Read free · Project Gutenberg
- #64555
- Image
- Lodore.png
Show 4 more facts
- publication date
- 1835-00-00
- first line
- In the flattest and least agreeable part of the county of Essex, about five miles from the sea, is situated a village or small town, which may be known in these pages by the name of Longfield.
- last line
- In after times these may be told, and the life of Fanny Derham be presented as a useful lesson, at once to teach what goodness and genius can achieve in palliating the woes of life, and to encourage those, who would in any way imitate her, by an example of calumny refuted by patience, errors rectified by charity, and the passions of our nature purified and ennobled by an undeviating observance of those moral laws on which all human excellence is founded -- a love of truth in ourselves, and a sincere sympathy with our fellow-creatures.
- Commons category
- Lodore (novel)
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~5 min read
Article
5 sectionsContents
- Plot and themes
- Reception
- Notes
- Bibliography
- External links
right|thumb|Title page from Lodore (1835) Lodore, also published under the title The Beautiful Widow, is a novel by Romantic novelist Mary Shelley, completed in 1833 and published in 1835.
==Plot and themes== In Lodore, Shelley focused her theme of power and responsibility on the microcosm of the family. The central story follows the fortunes of the wife and daughter of the title character, Lord Lodore, who is killed in a duel at the end of the first volume, leaving a trail of legal, financial, and familial obstacles for the two "heroines" to negotiate. Mary Shelley places female characters at the centre of the ensuing narratives: Lodore's daughter, Ethel, raised to be over-dependent on paternal control; his estranged wife, Cornelia, preoccupied with the norms and appearances of aristocratic society; and the intellectual and independent Fanny Derham, with whom both are contrasted.