This is a novel about how hard it is to understand other people, and how many misunderstandings and even tragedies arise from it.”– Harriet, Harriet Devine’s Blog I agree, and believe that The Rector’s Daughter is nothing short of a masterpiece. My essay on it will be published in the Spring 2023 issue of Slightly Foxed. Flora Macdonald Mayor (20 October 1872, Kingston Hill, Surrey – 28 January 1932, Hampstead, London), was an English novelist and short story writer, who published under the name F. M. Mayor. Condition: Very Good. Ships from the UK. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects.

The Rector’s Daughter by FM Mayor review — a novel to rival

The reason why I think that the narrative of ‘The Rector’s Daughter’ is so powerful is perhaps due to the fact that the reader deeply sympathises with poor Mary’s plight. To discuss her life and plight would reveal too many aspects of the plot – so it is difficult to discuss in great detail. Thank you, Marybel. I loved to hear about your discovery of this beautiful book and that your librarian recommended it. I will be writing more about it soon. Mary is thirty five years old when she meets the love of her life – a scholarly man, similar in this aspect to her Father – a man called Robert Herbert who becomes a close friend of the family. With Robert, Mary discovers an intelligent mind, a passion for reading and their friendship gradually develops into a very deep love – which consumes Mary in ways, she had not thought previously possible. As with all other things in life, Mary loves Robert passionately and in her mind contemplates a life with him, filled with love and light and family. But what happens to Mary is a fate too cruel to behold and as a reader we share Mary’s feelings of dismay and disappointment. Mary liked the long Dedmayne winter evenings. In October, as regularly as the leaves fell, she began the winter habit of reading her favourite novels for an hour before dinner, finding in Trollope, Miss Yonge, Miss Austen, and Mrs Gaskell friends so dear and familiar that they peopled her loneliness.”The Rector’s Daughter by the cruelly underrated FM (Flora Macdonald) Mayor is a book worthy to rank with anything that George Eliot or Jane Austen set their hand to. Published in 1924 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, it is one of those curious novels in which a cauldron of suppressed emotion and unrequited love boils away behind a landscape in which, for all practical purposes, hardly anything happens. The novel is minutely observed; there is beautiful detail about each day and the East Anglian countryside, so that although time passes in the book very slowly, it is wonderfully described.”– Verity, Verity’s Virago Venture

Rectors Daughter by Mayor F M - AbeBooks Rectors Daughter by Mayor F M - AbeBooks

I recently finished reading FM Mayor’s classic novel – ‘The Rector’s Daughter’, recently published by Persephone Books. The Rector’s Daughter belongs to the finest English tradition of novel writing. It is like a bitter Cranford… Mary Jocelyn’s ‘nothing’ is a full and rich state of being.’ Sylvia Lund, Time and Tide, 18 July 1924 Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth One winter day when Dora Redland had come to stay with Ella, she and Mary met for a walk. Mary suddenly started the subject. “I wish you would tell me something about love. I should think no one ever reached my age and knew so little, except of love in books. Father has never mentioned love, and Aunt Lottie treated it as if it ought not to exist. There were you and Will, but I was so young for me age I never took it in.” This has been on my Wish List for ages – it's another of the books which Staffordshire's library service does not seem to have, which is a shame, because I am intrigued by the very different responses. Reply

It is usually easy to give reasons why a book didn’t work for me. Indeed, they are few more satisfying activities than laying into a poorly written novel… but The Rector’s Daughter isn’t poorly written. Legget, Jane (2 March 1988). Local Heroines: A Women's History Gazetteer of England, Scotland and Wales. Pandora. ISBN 9780863580376– via Google Books.

F. M. Mayor - Wikipedia

Excellent review – it reminded me that I read the Virago edition years ago. It was very well written, but I thought very sad, so I don’t think I will be re-reading it in the near future. It was such a poignant read that it is taking me a few days to mentally recover from reading about poor Mary’s life. Recover from reading about the depths and constancy of her love, devotion and emotions. Her deep-rooted devotion to her Father and the man that she loved with her heart and soul. The Rector’s Daughter (1924) concerns the life and ill-fated love of Mary Jocelyn, the rector’s daughter in question. She is motherless, and lives a life of obedient graciousness towards her father – who is deeply intellectual, but not able to show his love for his daughter. I think Mary was supposed to be in the mold of silently passionate women, having to be content with their lot. A bit like Jane Eyre, perhaps… but then I have always thought Jane Eyre a little overrated. Here she is: But, Dora, don’t you think there is a Love ‘Which alters not with Time’s brief hours and days, / But bears it out even to the edge of Doom’?” This is one of my favourite books. When living in Angus the librarian offered this book to me. He considered I would enjoy it. It is most beautifully written with only a few passages frustrating. The pain I felt for Mary was piercing . She was the gentlest of creatures. I am very defensive of this book though found that The Squire’s Daughter frustrated me and could hardly believe it was written by the same hand. Of the declaration of love made by Herbert it is among the lanes during a March day has me in tears every time.How disappointing that you didn't like this one. I'd thought it sounded interesting but based on this review I might have to reconsider… Her best-known novel is The Rector's Daughter (1924). (In October 2009 this was described in the BBC's 'Open Book' programme as one of the best 'neglected classics'.) Take care, Mary dear, you stepped right into that puddle. Wait a minute. Let me wipe your coat. I am not quite sure that I understand what you were saying.”

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I normally hate earnestness in all forms – but I didn't find this earnest. I just found it very honest, and deeply sad. Aside from the whole issue of romance and spinsterhood etc it's also about general life disappointment in the sense of not achieving your dreams and having to deal with the consequences of that. Dora is also a spinster, but less angsty. I think I would have rather enjoyed a novel from Dora’s perspective… Yet, for all this, The Rector’s Daughter is still a novel that seems to exist just below the literary radar, much loved by its readers, but also, somehow, not widely read. Little has been written by scholars about this or F.M. Mayor’s other works, perhaps because she produced so few in her lifetime (a collection of her ghost stories, said to be admired by M.R. James, was published posthumously). Her two other novels, The Third Miss Symons (1913) and The Squire’s Daughter (1929), were also reissued by Virago Modern Classics in the 1980s. Sybil Oldfield’s Spinsters of this Parish: the life and times of F.M. Mayor and Mary Sheepshanks(Virago, 1984) is a well-researched dual biography that provides a fascinating social context for Mayor’s life and unsuccessful attempt to make a living as an actress. The chapter on her four years at Newnham College, Cambridge in the 1890s is particularly revealing, including the revelation that Mayor and her former tutor, Mary Bateson, remained close friends until Bateson’s early death in 1906. This is such a brilliant book, worthy of being a classic, really, in that it so perfectly encapsulates how limited unmarried women’s lives could be before the advent of feminism”– Rachel, Book Snob

I read this book many years ago. I think the copy I had was a Penguin Classic with a foreword by Susan Hill. She said that a very good book leaves you changed. I have an enduring memory of this book, of being unable to read the words for tears when Herbert remembers Mary. I was so moved by this book I bought endless copies for others and recommending it when people wanted an idea of which book to read next. It was also one of the forgotten classics on radio 4 which was won by The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. I felt The Snow Goose was very well championed by Michael Morpurgo but thought it a novella not a novel. Susan Hill did not speak of The Rector’s Daughter with enough passion and did not give it the gravitas or joy it deserved. It is without doubt a book I treasure and one I take from the book shelf and read again of Mary. How I loved poor Mary who was brave and love the well written words.