Celia Fiennes was an intriguing, unmarried woman who journeyed around the country on horseback between 1685 and 1703 noting down what she saw.  The exerpts from her diary contained in this volume display a country comprising towns teeming with industry, linked by dirty, muddy and treacherous roads.

I’m sure this book would be fascinating to someone researching their local area or looking at the history of England at this time, but as a mere reader I found it hard going.  Fiennes does not describe the places she visits so much as she provides an itemised list of exactly what is there: the book is a succession of distances, acreages, numbers of churches and building materials of houses.  She is very matter of fact in what she reports and tends to focus on the physical features of the towns and landscapes, rather than talking about the people and their customs.  Very occasionally she will deviate from this course to report on a local food or habit, such as her disgust at the smokers in Cornwall where ‘both men, women and children have all their pipesof tobacco in their mouths and soe sit round the fire smoaking’ (p. 79) but this is an unfortunate rarity.

I might have been tempted to read a longer version of Celia Fiennes’ travels to see if this focus on industry and buildings is universal or just showing the bias of the editor who selected the exerpts for this volume, and also to read Celia’s thoughts on the places I have lived and know well, none of which are included in this book.  However, the prose, quite simply, is not enjoyable to read.  Bearing in mind when Celia was writing I wasn’t expecting modern punctuation and grammar, but equally I hadn’t anticipated her being the queen of the run-on sentence.  Some of them go on for several pages and while I could posibly bring myself to forgive her if it was beautiful, elegant, descriptive prose, I cannot when it’s a great big list with some verbs and conjunctions added.  To let Celia speak for herself and show you what I mean:

The situation of Lancaster town is very good, the Church neately built of stone, the Castle which is just by, both on a very great ascent from the rest of the town and so is in open view, the town and river lying round it beneath; on the Castle tower walking quite round by the battlements I saw the whole town and river at a view, which runs almost quite round and returns againe by the town, and saw thesea beyond and the great high hills beyond that part of the sea which are in Wales, and also into Westmorelandto the great hills there call’d Furness Fells or Hills being a string of vast high hills together; also into Cumberland to the great hill called Black Comb Hil whence they dig their black lead and no where else, but they open the mine but once in severall yeares; I also saw into Yorkshire; there is lead copper gold and silver in some of those hills and marble and christall also. (pp. 16-17)

And that’s one of the short sentences!

I was also rather disappointed at how absent Miss Celia Fiennes herself was from this book, although admittedly this could be a problem of editing for this particular edition.  Even though they were confined to Britain, her journeys seem quite remarkable for a single woman during this period, and I was looking forward to reading about what that was like.  I wanted to find out about her own experiences of travelling, any difficulties arising from her unusual circumstances as an unmarried lady on such a journey (albeit with an escort of servants who are occasionally aluded to) and her interactions with the people that she meets.  However, with the exception of a few disparaging comments about her landladies and complaints about rye in the bread upsetting her stomach she barely features at all.  The account of travelling through England could have been written by anyone, male or female, and that seems a great shame to me.

Please don’t let my review put you off picking up Celia Fienne’s writings, however, if this sort of thing is of interest to you.  Nonetheless, I would suggest getting hold of the full volume of her travels rather than this collection of extracts to avoid the disappointment of your local area not being one of those featured in this book, and also not approaching it looking for an entertaining, casual read.

Through England on a Side-Saddle by Celia Fiennes.  Published by Penguin, 2009, pp. 87.  Originally published in 1947, written in 1698.

The attraction of this book is without doubt the wonderful character and narrative voice that Nye has created for the eponymous Mrs Shakespeare. She is earthy and practical, writing with a straightforward and direct tone which is full of bathos and the perfect contrast to her husband’s elegant, playful tones. I enjoyed the way that she deliberately avoids using metaphor and simile as she considers these dishonest ways of speaking, and her down to earth deconstruction of the sonnet Shakespeare gives to her is a stroke of comic genius.

This book uses one fictional event, the visit of Anne Hathaway to her husband in London in 1594, as a lens through which to examine the possible relationship between Shakespeare and his much neglected wife. Throughout her story are anecdotes and thoughts taken from Shakespeare’s plays and I had fun spotting and identifying these. In particular, this book creates a reason behind Shakespeare’s odd-sounding bequest to his wife of the second best bed. I thought that this section of the novel, focussing on the unusual relations enjoyed my Mr and Mrs Shakespeare in the second best bed, was useful in that it explored the different reactions to and motivations for physical pleasure of the two main characters. However, it did become rather overstated and was a disproportionately long section in what is a short novel. On the whole though, I enjoyed the irreverent tone of the whole book, and found it to be a good read.

Mrs Shakespeare by Robert Nye.  Published by Souvenir Press, 2000, pp. 224.  Originally published in 1993.

N.B. This is an old review written in 2010 and posted on Goodreads and LibraryThing before I started keeping track of all the books I read here at Old English Rose Reads.  I’ve decided to keep copies here so that this remains a complete record of my reading since I started reviewing books for my own pleasure.