By Eliza Parsons
Theme: Courage
To be honest, I haven't been able to finish this one yet, I'm just under half-way thorough. It's in the public domain and there is a copy of it on the internet. It's free, but it's not on librivox yet so I have to physically read it and that's been a challenge for me this past year (although I have been getting better).
Here's the story so far:
It's about a young noblewoman named Matilda Weimar, she's on the run with her elderly manservant and gets taken in by generous persons of lower social class than herself (a few of whom happen to live in an old abandoned castle...which I think is really cool!). Matilda explores the castle and discovers some of the mysteries left by the previous inhabitants; the Wolfenbaches. She also get's comfortable enough to divulge some of her own mysterious past to her new friends.
After a while, Matilda's new friends help her find a job as a companion and friend to a noblewoman who is their distant relative. Life is looking like it's getting better and then a figure from Matilda's past shows up and
he's a pretty destructive, creepy guy.
The impression I had of early-gothic female characters is that they're really wimpy, there's a whole infograph about how much they faint or swoon, but so far I'm not finding that. They're pretty brave, sometimes even more so than their male companions.
Matilda's got her Alfred Pennyworth looking after her, but he's not gonna go to the creepy upstairs of the castle. Matilda does because she's got this little inkling that maaaaybbe the house isn't really haunted. She's really proactive in her life, too. When her guardian starts getting creepy and confusing, she doesn't keep quiet and passive until the situation hits a crisis point, she and Alfred takes action.
I also really like that, when two women get together in this story, they don't talk about boys...they talk about other girls! This story is over 200 years old and it passes the bechdel test. I feel like Catherine Moreland had better female literary role-models than I did...
I'm hoping all of the "Horrid Novels" in the public domain eventually become available as audiobooks. I actually bought a headset and started reading this one aloud, but I don't quite like the sound of my voice so I'm not sure if I'll finish it.
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