George Gissing: A Fan's Commonplace Blog

Commonplace 215  George & Some of His Ilk vs. Mrs Grundy.

If Douglas Adams' ground-breaking The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy click teaches us anything, it is that everything is meshed together by interconnectedness. So it is with Mrs Grundy.

Phryne by Jean-Leon Gerome (1861)

Of all the women in George's life, it could have been Mrs Grundy who gave him the most grief. He often mentions how flabbergasting she is. Such was her power over him that he wrote, but destroyed unpublished, a novel entitled Mrs Grundy's Enemies; no doubt he considered himself in their number. A quick squint at her Wikipedia page click proves how influential she was and how she continues to vex writers in particular. So, who was this femme fatale who so tied George up in knots that his mojo was comprehensively flummoxed?

She first gets a mention in Speed The Plough, a play by Thomas Morton (1764-1838), but she is only present as a 'ghost at the feast' reference and does not make an actual appearance. She is the personification of what is proper and right, and all human doings are judged by her pronouncements. She is an expert on etiquette and social manners - with particular reference to what is or is not, morally decent - and is the standard by which all actions can/should be judged, mostly by those who cannot set their own parameters. Thomas Morton for some time attended a school in Soho Square in central London. Soho Square was a thorn in George's side because he thoroughly disapproved of Marianne aka Nell visiting there to meet her friends. This was probably at what is now known as The House of St Barnabas, but was originally named as The House of Charity, a place of support for the homeless or those in need of support.

The House of Charity opened in 1861, having moved from a building round the corner. 

Of course, George makes this place sound like a hell-hole full of filth and ill-repute but it was a place run by followers of the Church of England, and William Gladstone was a regular supporter. In fact, it was started by The Oxford Movement, and offered a range of services to families and individuals who were in want: 'The House of Charity described itself as one of the few institutions in London where men, women and children of all walks of life, were able to 'apply for aid without a loss of self-respect'. Temporary guests of the House included 'all who found themselves in a condition of friendlessness and destitution that is not the manifest result of idleness or vice.' 

Soho Square was also where the Catholic St Patrick's Church is situated. George was highly critical of Marianne when she said she wanted to take up the Catholic faith - he thought this was a sign she was mad (this says so much more about George than it ever could about Marianne). Perhaps it was the combination of access to a caring, social support system and its potential for influence that spooked him. Add to this the pastoral care offered by the Catholic faith, perhaps he realised his sway over Nell was threatened. At this time, she was seriously ill and receiving all manner of medical interventions. No doubt she gained more compassion from her friends and supporters than she ever did from her husband; we know he was annoyed when her supporters turned up at his door and told him off about his treatment of her. Biographers assume these women were common termagants but maybe they were the equivalent of social workers who visited mean and heartless husbands who didn't treat their wives well. And Marianne could have been offering support when she could to others in similar or worse situations as she found herself. Perhaps the people who supported her viewed George as a wife abuser and encouraged Marianne to leave him when she finally made the break that took her to live in Brixton. 

The entrance to St Patrick's Church click

From 'Speed the Plough', Mrs Grundy reappears in Samuel Butler's 'Erewhon', an 1872 novel about an imaginary place click, not quite a sci fi but more than a fairy tale. Here, Butler turns the name Grundy into an anagram, but Victorians loved word puzzles and puns, and so there was no real mystery. She is described as an 'incomprehensible goddess' - which is exactly what I aspire to be. Samuel Butler was interesting cove who spent time sheep farming in New Zealand, and who loved to live in isolated study of Homer.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was wealthy and so had a few more options than George enjoyed, but they had quite a lot in common. Both were fond of the Classics, both wrote about sex and the Victorians, and both did battle with Mrs Grundy. Butler's later title. The Way of All Flesh (1903) had the double-meaning likely to confuse those hoping to find a saucy read, much as The Odd Women and The Private Papers of.... probably did. Any disappointed readers would have perhaps taken themselves of to specialist bookshops or purveyors of artistic prints - copies of My Secret Life by Anonymous - not the current outfit using that name!! - were available from 1888. This work eventually went to almost a dozen volumes, and is now regarded as a classic of Victorian literature, much more informative of its age than anything produced by George and Mr Butler. To whet your appetite, if you haven't been there already (I know I have!), go to click. We may assume George didn't know it was written by someone who coined the name 'Walter' as a pseudonym, unless he wanted his son to be associated with it.

Erewhon was mistaken as a sequel to Bulwer-Lytton's block-busting Vril: The Power of the Coming Race (1871) - another dodgy title - an early sci-fi/fantasy novel. This misplaced association made it into a best seller, but when the truth was revealed - that Erewhon had nothing to do with Bulwer-Lytton - sales of Butler's book bombed. The fickle reading public, eh? Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) might be remembered as a writer, or even as the originator of phrases such as 'the great unwashed', and 'the pen is mightier than the sword' (though that may have originally been a typo haha) but will always be remembered by half the population as a sexual pervert and wife rapist. It would seem he is also famed for having an influence on those believing the Earth is hollow. And he was embraced by the Theosophists. But there was worse to come.

Cock fight by Jean-Leon Gerome 1846. 

Early works by Bulwer-Lytton include several about Romans - The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) was followed the next year by Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes. Now, I don't know much about (anything haha) opera or the Nazis, but I do know Wagner used the book for the basis of his Rienzi and that Hitler said it was his favourite Wagner work, and that it was a huge influence on his political thinking. However unreadable Veranilda is, at least it didn't kick-start the Holocaust.

Of course, the spectre of Mrs Grundy was usually invoked in order to shame people into appearing to be something they were not - which was whatever the norm was that prudes set for themselves and others. The British have a dual personality that lurches from the bawdy to the prudish in all things, but smut and innuendo, and blatant erotica and pornography, have been staples in the British cultural diet since written records could record them, and illustrators were able to work up the visuals.

Pollice Verso by Jean-Leon Gerome 1872 

When Mrs Grundy was busy making folk feel guilty and shameful about sex, what did she say about the other sort of erotica/porn - that is, violence? The Victorian age is famous for the amount of cruelty it tolerated, but it was also the time when cruelty was beginning to sicken all sectors of the community, and sexual exploitation was beginning to affront the sensibilities of the majority. Risible and annoying as she was, Mrs Grundy had a small part to play in that.